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Satire in the ^ 
Early English Drama 



By 

Eva M. Campbell 



COLUMBUS, OHIO: 
1914 



Satire in the 
Early English Drama 



By 
Eva M. Campbell 



COLUMBUS, OHIO: 
THE F. J. HEER PRINTING CO. 

1914 



C3 



F£8 18 



iSili 



PREFACE. 



Though numerous references have been made to the satirical 
character of many of the plays of our Early English Drama be- 
fore 1600, no work exists which shows in detail this informal 
dramatic satire. It is hoped that this dissertation will be use- 
ful with its instances of early informal satire taken from the 
miracles, moralities, and interludes of the period 1450 to 1600 
in showing : ( i ) the place satire holds in the early drama — a 
place to become exceedingly prominent in the Elizabethan Drama, 
especially in the plays of Ben Jonson ; (2) the relation of this 
satire to the subject-matter and the purpose of the plays; (3) 
the methods, tone, type, and the objects of attack of this satire; 

(4) a reflection of the manners or social traits of the period; 

(5) a comparison of this informal dramatic satire with the in- 
formal satire occurring in other literary forms of the period, 
and with the informal dramatic satire of Elizabethan times. 

The writer is indebted to the following excellent teachers: 
E. L. Beck, B. A. Eisenlohr, E. S. Ingraham. E. H. McNeal, 
W. S. Elden, A. H. Hodgman, and C. S. Duncan ; and owes 
special acknowledgment to S. C. Derby, Professor of Latin, J. 
R. Taylor, Professor of English, and J. V. Denney, Dean of the 
College of Arts. Professor Denney has been exceedingly kind 
and has read the first and last drafts of my dissertation. Pro- 
fessor G. H. McKnight has been helpful in proposing a subject^ 
in directing my efforts, and in giving encouragement — such as 
only those who have been in his classes can appreciate. 

Many thanks are due also to the Dean of Women of Ohio 
State University — Caroline M. Breyfogle. 

Columbus, Ohio, May 22, 1914. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Chapter I. Introductory 9 

Chapter II. Satire in the Miracle Plays 16 

Chapter III. Satire in the Pre-Tudor Moralities 36 

Chapter IV. Satire in the Earlier Tudor Moralities 46 

Chapter V. Satire in the Elizabethan Moralities 75 

Chapter VI. Satire in the Interlude or Farce 103 

Chapter VII. Summary and Conclusion 114 



TEXTS OF PLAYS. 



Abra'ham and Isaac. Brome MS. "Non-Cycle' Mystery Plays." E. E. 

T. S. ex. ser. 104, Ed. O. Waterhouse. 
Abraham and Isaac. Dublin MS. Ibid. 

Albion Knight. Shakespeare Society Publications, 1844, vol. 1. 
All For Money. Shakespeare Jahrbuch, vol. XI, 1904. 
Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis, E. E. T. S. 37, Part 4. 
Calisto and Meliboea. Dodsley's Old English Plays, vol. I. 
Castle of Perseverance, The. "Macro Plays," E. E. T. S. ex. ser. 91. 
Chester Plays, Ed. T. Wright. Shakespeare Soc, 1847. 
Christ's Burial and Resurrection. E. E. T. S. ex. ser. 91. 
Cobbler's Prophecy, The. W. Dibelius. Shak. Jb. 33, 1897. 
Conflict of Conscience, The. O. E. P., vol. VI. 
Contention Between Liberality and Prodigality. O. E. P., vol. VIII. 
Conversion of St. Paul. "Digby Plays," E. E. T. S., ex. ser. 70. 
Cornish Cycle, The. Ed. E. Norris. "Ancient Cornish Drama" 2 vols, 
Coventry Cycle, "Two Coventry Corpus Christi Plays." Ed. Hardin 

Craig. E. E. T. S. ex. ser. 87. 
Croxton Play of the Sacrament. "Non-Cycle Mystery Plays." E. E. 

T. S. ex. ser. 104. 
Cruell Debtter, The. W. Wager. Malone Society, 1911. 
Disobedient Child, The. O. E. P., vol. II. 
Dux Moraud. W. Heuser. Anglia 30 (1907) p. 180 ff. 
Everyman. O. E. P., vol. I. 
Four Elements, The. Ibid. 
Four P's, The. Ibid. 
Gammer Gurton's Needle. Ibid. III. 

♦Gentleness and Nobility. J. S. Farmer. Early English Dramatists. 
God's Promises. O. E. P., vol. I. 
Godly Queen Hester. Ed. W. Bang., "Materialien zur Kunde des alteren 

Englischen Dramas." 
Hickscorner. O. E. P., vol. 1. 
Impatient Poverty. Ed. W. Bang., "Materialien — " 
Jack Juggler. O. E. P., vol. II. 
Jacob and Esau. O. E. P., vol. II. 
*John Baptist. Harleian Miscellany I, 97. 
Johan the Evangelist. Malone Society. 

John, Tyb and Sir John. Ed. A. Brandl. "Quellen und Forschungen." 
Killing of the Children, The. "Digby Plays," E. E. T. E., ex. ser. 70. 
King Darius. Bran'dl's "Quellen," p. 359. 
King Johan. Ed., Manly, J. M. "Pre-Shakespearean Drama," vol. I. 

* Not accessible. 



8 

Life and Repentance of Mary Magdalene. Ed. F. J. Carpenter. 

Like Wil to Like. O. E. P., vol. IH. 

Longer thou Livest more Fool thou Art. Sh. Jb. XXXVL 

Love. Brandl's "Quellen." 

Love. Feigned and Unfeigned. Malone Society, 19n. 

Ludus Coventriae. Sh. Soc, 184L Ed. J. O. Halliwell-Phillips. 

Magnificence, E. E. T. S., ex. ser. CXVIIL 

Mankind. E. E. T. S., ex. ser. 91. 

Mary Magdalene. "Digby Plays." E. E. T. S. ex. ser. 70. 

Mind Will and Understanding. E. E. T. S., ex. ser. 9L "Macro Plays." 

Mundus et Infans. O. E. P., vol. L 

Nature. Brandl's "Quellen." 

New-Castle-upon-Tyne. E. E. T. S., ex. ser. 104. "Non-Cycle Mystery 

Plays." 
New Custom. O. E. P., vol. 
Norwich. E. E. T. S., ex. ser., 104. 
Pardoner and the Friar, The. O. E. P., vol. L 
Patient Grissel. John Phillip. Malone Society. 
*PhiIotus. 

Pride of Life, The. Brandl's "Quellen." 
Prodigal Son, The. Malone Society. 1911. 
Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune. O. E. P., vol. VI. 
Respublica. E. E. T. S., ex. ser. 94. 
Ralph Roister Doister. O. E. P.. vol. III. 
*Somebody Avarice and Minister. 
Temperance and Humility. Malone Soc. 1911. 
*The Temptacyon : John Bale. 
Three Ladies of London, The. O. E. P., vol. VI. 
Three Laws, The. John Bale. Anglia, V. 137. 
Three Lords and Three Ladies of London. O. E. P., vol. VI. 
Thersites. O. E. P., vol. I. 
Tide Tarrieth No Man, Sh. Jb. XLIII. 
Tom Tyler and His Wife. Malone Soc. Reprints. 1910. 
Towneley Plays. Ed. George England. E. E. T. S., ex. ser. 70. 
Triall of Treasure. O. E. P., vol. III. 
Youth. O. E. P., vol. 11. 

York Plays. Ed. Lucy Toulmin Smith. Oxford, 1885. 
Wealth and Health. Malone Soc. Reprints. 
Weather, The. Brandl's "Quellen," p. 211. 
Wit and Science. Sh. Soc. 1848. 
Witty and Witless. Percy Soc, vol. XX, 1846. 

MORAL TRAGEDIES. 

Apius and Virginia. O. E. P.. vol. IV. 
Cambyses, O. E. P., vol. IV. 
Horestes. Brandl's "Quellen." 

* Not accessible. 



CHAPTER I, 



I propose to discuss the informal satire occurring in that 
mediaeval period of the drama between 1400 and 1600. This 
satire is like the drama in which it is found in two respects : it 
is irregular and it is scarcely deserving of the type-name. We 
may attempt, however, to define it as a form of composition in 
verse or prose which is subject to no fixed form such as the 
decasyllabic couplet of formal satire and which is "not a con- 
scious literary production but rather the immediate expression of 
thoughts resulting either from the universal desire of men to 
ridicule follies in others or from the occasional desire of some 
to lash evils and inconsistencies with the hope of causing a re- 
form. If we could subtract from Juvenal's satire his interest in 
form, in rhetoric we should have something approximate to in- 
formal satire. This, however, dififers from Juvenal's efforts in 
that it arises spontaneously from the desire to attack evils ; it 
spends all its force on the substance of the attack and pays no 
heed to the literary form. 

The same satirist may write both formal and informal satire, 
for instance, Ben Jonson. It all depends upon the mood of the 
writer. If he be solely interested in holding up to the ridicule 
of the world, an individual, a class, a locality, a trade, or an 
institution, he will write informal satire. Here, then, we may 
expect a somewhat faithful reflection of the life of a particular 
period. 

If we contrast formal and informal satire, we find that in the 
main qualities they are alike. Both must have humor, must show 
in their authors a sense of superiority, a sense of the ludicrous, 
the power to exaggerate either consciously or unconsciously, and 
at the final analysis a reformatory purpose. The chief dis- 
tinction seems to be in the form, the spirit, the purpose, the 
quantity of humor, the type and the scope of the subject- 
matter. The informal satire by not being restricted to one fixed 
form can show greater variety of expression than the formal. 
It can be original in choosing forms for its expression ; formal 

9 



lO 



English satire can not since it is based upon Latin satire or upon 
imitations of the Classical satire. It ^differs from the formal 
satire in its chief purpose to attack and destroy an evil— not to 
achieve a literary performance by the use of satiric material. 
As to spirit, it is fairer than the formal for it sees along with 
the evil a glimpse of the good. It does not condemn all mem- 
bers of a class or trade as does Juvenal. Pessimistic though it 
may be it is yet hopeful. In type it is objective rather than sub- 
jective ' It is not philosophical or reflective. Its humor is often 
faint Its methods are direct and indirect. Its subject-matter 
confines itself to public evils rather than to private ; to classes 
and groups rather than to individuals. 

Informal satire is not one of the steps in the evolution of 
formal satire. The informal dramatic satire of the period 1400 
to 1600 does not lead up to formal Elizabethan satire. Its rep- 
resentatives in Elizabethan satire are not the satires of Wyatt, 
Hall, Donne, and Lodge but the satiric plays of Ben Jonson.. 

Informal satire may be subordinate to the type of composi- 
tion in which it is found ; that of the early drama is subordinate. 
It came with direct didacticism which lay at the basis of me- 
dieaval drama. It is itself indirect didacticism since it points out 
inconsistencies unworthy to be imitated and deserving to be 
destroyed. The part it played in the drama became more and 
more important as the attack upon evils in the church and the 
state became bolder. 

At first this political and religious satire scarcely appeared 
in the drama. Instead there was the dull, generalized lament on 
the time moral and social satire. The specific attacks on the 
clergy and the government became more frequent in the moral 
plays in which the appeal was not so much to the eye as to the ear. 
What was said came to be of more importance than what was 
seen. A greater demand was made upon the intellect of the 
audience. Material dealing with contemporary problems was 
introduced much of which especially during the time of the 
Reformation was satirical comment on the follies and the im- 
morality of the church, on the courts, ecclesiastical and civil, 
and on the government. 

In some of the early dramas, the satire does not have the 
spirit of reform. Instead of the method of direct rebuke a 
character is represented as typical of the evil as in Heywood's 



II 

farces where we see the priest immoral, the wife unfaithful, 
and the husband duped. Here is burlesque both amusing and 
satirical. Perhaps we may say that "J^ck Juggler" is a satirical 
burlesque on the doctrine of transubstantiation the people believ- 
ing it being as foolish as the bewildered Jenkin Careaway who 
could not tell whether he was himself or his double. 

A comparison of this informal dramatic satire with the in- 
formal undramatic satire of the same time shows much the same 
material of attack, the same method, tone, type, style. A com- 
parison with the formal Elizabethan satire has already been 
made by Dr. Raymond M. Alden and need not detain us here. 

My purpose is first to make an intensive study of the Early 
English Drama — the Miracles, Moralities, and Interludes before 
1600 with the intention of giving all the instances of satire that 
occur. These will be of course, of no literary value for the plays 
from which they are taken are so crude that they do not justly 
merit the name drama. They will, however, be interesting as 
showing the beginnings of satire in the drama — the literary form 
in which it has achieved its greatest effectiveness. They will 
show what the mediaeval mind satirized in politics, religion, and 
society, and incidentally reflect the life of the times. 

This early dramatic satire is like most of the undramatic 
satire which preceded it. informal in nature ; it is written in var- 
ious metres sometimes in the alliterative long line, sometimes in 
ballad form, or in a jingle characteristic of a particular author, 
for instance, Skelton's own peculiar measure. It is written not 
only informally but also incidentally. The authors of the Mid- 
dle Ages were didactic in thought. What they wrote was at first 
constructive in aim, not destructive ; and consequently not satir- 
ical. The drama until the beginning of the sixteenth century 
shows only snatches of satire. 

The first English man of letters to write satirical drama was 
John Skelton, a priest of the time of Henry VII and Henry VIII. 
Two of his contemporaries deserve to be mentioned with him — 
John Bale and the Scotch satirist, Sir David Lindsay; this trio 
of priests were writing at the period when the New Learning 
and the Reformation — the two factors of the Renaissance — 
were being felt. All three, however, though influenced by the 
Renaissance belong to the mediaeval school and use mediaeval 
forms especially allegory. 



12 

But before these men began to write with evident satirical 
intent there were authors of the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, 
and fifteenth centuries who occasionally became satirical. Some 
wrote satirical songs ; some satirical visions, or dialogues, or rude 
dramas in which there were opportunities for satire. In the 
twelfth century during the reigns of Henry II, Richard I, and 
John, there was the poetry of the Goliards or wandering clerks 
in Latin; there was the sirvente of the trouvere and troubadour in 
Anglo-French, besides epigrams and satires in Anglo-Latin. In 
the thirteenth century during the reigns of Henry III and Ed- 
ward I the Goliards continued to write poetry. They did not, 
however, confine themselves to the use of Latin but wrote in 
Anglo-French, and English too. Ecclesiastics also wrote satire in 
the three languages while the gleemen sang songs in English which 
were the counterpart of the sirvente of the twelfth century in 
Anglo-French. 

Passing to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, we find 
in the first named, during the reigns of Edward I, II, and III, 
and Richard II a few Goliardic poems, some social satire su- 
perior to any that had yet been written, the songs of Lawrence 
Minot against the French and the Scotch, and the beginnings of 
class satire. In the latter part of the century there was the 
incidental satire in Langland's "Piers Plowman" and in Chaucer's 
"Canterbury Tales." In the fifteenth century during the reigns 
of Henry IV, V, VI, Edward IV, Richard III, and Henry VII, 
little satire was written. There were Lydgate's attempts, the 
realistic "London Lickpenny", and "Ragman Roll" — beginning 
the conventional satire on woman. Then the Lollard poem "Jack 
Upland" followed by the political baMads of the Wars of the 
Roses completed the list. 

Treating these early periods in more detail, we notice listed 
in the twelfth century as an imitation of the French allegorical 
satire "Architrenius" by Jean de Hauteville. We find satire on 
woman in Walter Mapes' "De Coniuge non Ducenda" anticipat- 
ing the later English "Ragman Roll" ; and satire on the clergy in 
his "Apocalypsis Goliae" ; and satire on education and religion 
in Nigellus Wireker's "Speculum Stultorum." These satires of 
the time of Henry II though in Anglo-Latin serve to show us 
that there was plenty of material for satire and that there were 
a few who saw the evils of the day and dared attack them. 



13 

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries we have besides 
the satire in Langland, Chaucer, and Gower, the invectives of the 
people dealing with subjects varying from the vanity of woman, 
the oppression of the poor and the arrogance of servants to the 
immoralky of the clergy. Listed by titles, they are: "On the 
Vanity of Women," "The Song of the Husbandman." A poem 
on the corruption of the clergy, 1316-17, "On the Times," "The 
Complaint of the Plowman," "Pierce the Plowman's Crede," 
"Song of Nego," "When Holy church is under Foot," "Winner 
and Waster," "Sir Peny," "Why I cannot be a Nun," "The Order 
of Fair Ease," and "The Land of Cokaygne." 

In the fifteenth century there was not much literature of any 
kind. We list the following works in satire: "Jack Upland," 
"Corruption of Public Manners," "Corruption of the Times," 
"A Satirical Ballad on the Times by John Lydgate : also his "Tale 
of Three score Folys and Thre." 

In the sixteenth century we come to Barclay's "Ship of 
Fools," Skelton's, "Co1\ti Cloute," "WHiy come Ye NAT to 
Courte," "The Bowge of Courte," "Elynor Rummyng," and Roy 
and Barlow's "Rede me and be not Wrothe." 

Not mentioned in these lists of satire is the informal satire 
that occurs in the miracles the manuscripts of which date from 
the fifteenth century to the seventeenth and that in the morali- 
ties and interludes. It is with these antecedents of the drama — 
the regular drama — that I shall deal. 

But first some notice of the work that has already been done 
upon the subject of English satire is proper. Two able mono- 
graphs have been written — one by Raymond M. Alden^ of the 
University of Pennsylvania and the other by Samuel Marion 
Tucker- of Columbia LTniversity. The latter author's "Verse 
Satire Before the Renaissance" is the first link in the history of 
English satire treating as it does the period from the twelfth 
century to the middle of the sixteenth. The second link is Dr. 
Alden's work which deals primarily with the rise of formal satire 
in English — with Elizabethan satire from 1540 to 1625. Inci- - 
dentally he surveys Classical and mediaeval satire and compares 
them in form, tone, subject-matter, type, and style. 

I agree with Dr. Alden that mediaeval satire is informal in 
nature, occurs only incidentally, is lacking in humor and irony, 
and is pervaded by a' great moral earnestness. I also agree with 



Dr. Tucker that the satire in the miracles, moralities, and inter- 
ludes is incidental, and chaotic, and that it is a very difficult 
matter sometimes, to decide whether the authors of these crude 
dramas were aiming to be comic or satiric. Still, I think that 
this so-called drama does furnish many instances of satirical 
touches some of which Dr. Tucker has cited in his chapter on the 
satiric play. 

What I shall write will serve as a supplement to Dr. Tuck- 
er's chapter and will, I hope, help to make a foundation for the 
further study of satire in the English drama. 

Since the drama of the period 1450 to 1600 is itself crude, 
one cannot expect to find any finished specimens of satire in it. 
What we shall find will be satirical snatches which sprang forth 
almost instinctively from men who could see corruptions in the 
church, in politics, and in society, and could not help decrying 
them with the hope of bringing about a reform. Throughout the 
mediaeval period, the church and the state were the main objects 
of attack because they had reached a point when they might 
be said to be in their dotage. The church was corrupt, the gov- 
ernment was corrupt and the people knew it and resented it. 
Keen witted men were tired of false pilgrimages, penances, and 
worship of images; tired of the hypocrisy of avaricioiis church- 
men who sold benefices and held plural livings; and disgusted 
with the ignorance and immorality of the clergy. 

And yet we do not find much satire especially of a religious 
nature in the miracle plays. And this is not strange for the 
texts that we have, were written probably by men of the church 
who were on the whole conservative and unwilling to criticise 
their own institution. Then, too, the fact that the plays were, 
in some cases at any rate, subject to the censorship of an austere 
cardinal or dean might account for the lack of satire. But per- 
haps the strongest reason for the scanty amount of satire lies in 
the nature of the miracle plays themselves. Their aim was first 
and always didactic. 

Somewhat different from the case of the miracle plays is 
that of the moralities. These plays although at first didactic, 
written to teach ethics rather than Biblical story, widened their 
field until they included pedagogical, controversial, and political 
moralities as well as the old Biblical type. Hence we may ex- 
pect to find more satire in them than in the miracles. 



15 

A still greater freedom of subject-matter appears in the 
interlude. We shall restrict the meaning of this word to its 
specific use suggested by Mr. Childs, namely, that it was a play 
characterized by the free use of old materials and old methods 
with the object of pleasing rather than teaching the audience. 



CHAPTER II. 



SATIRE IN THE MIRACLE PLAYS. 

The miracle plays were by very nature inartistic in aim. 
Written primarily to instruct, they were concerned with attracting 
the attention of the rude and unlettered to the story of the Bible, 
or with relating to them miracles performed by saints, or episodes 
in the lives of martyrs from which some lesson might be drawn. 
Being written with the idea of instruction foremost and the idea 
of amusement lacking or subordinate, all miracles have to be 
classed as didactic and constructive in aim. We cannot expect, 
therefore, much satire in the miracles for satire is by nature 
destructive. Occasionally in some of the pageants which w^ere 
run together to form cycles, we find snatches of satire forced 
in with comic and secular material. We rarely find a pageant 
which contains in any great degree satiric matter. The best is 
the twenty-fifth pageant in the Ludus Coventriae edited by J. 
O. Halliwell. 

In connection with the reason that the didactic aim excludes 
satire, we should consider the authors of the cycles, their sub- 
ject-matter, and their audiences. First the authors of the cycles 
were priests and clerks who were infused with the didactic not 
the satiric aim, and who were either too loyal or too subservient 
to the church to satirize her. Then, too, the subject-matter of 
the miracles was limited to Scriptural narrative or to legends 
of saints or martyrs. The material was devotional. It did not 
deal with questions of government, with criticisms of church or 
society. It was not controversial or polemical. It was Biblical. 
Convention drew lines within which the avithors had to keep. 
If, to satisfy the cravings of the human mind for interest and 
variety, comic and realistic touches were added, they were added 
not in connection with the main characters which were conven- 
tional and therefore not to be changed, but with the minor char- 
acters in certain pageants which were largely the production of 
the imagination and not transcripts from Bible story. Lastly the 
audiences were made up of all classes of people. Occasionally 

16 



17 

the king and the queen were present. There were lords and 
ladies, churchmen, citizens, and the rabble. Take them at their 
best the rude unlettered element predominated. They were not 
intellectually alert; they were not critical; they would have been 
incapable of appreciating delicate satire had it been presented 
them. And satire was not supposed to be given them. What 
the audience got, as the Church wished, was the story of the Bible 
pictured by living characters dressed in mediaeval costume. 

Though the cycles were apparently in the hands of the people, 
they were still close to the church, not only in authorship but 
also in presentation. They were generally given in connection 
with the great festival of the church known as the Corpus Christi 
Procession ; or they were given at Whitsuntide or occasionally on 
some other Feast day in the year. 

It is not strange, therefore, that an examination of the mir- 
acle cycles yields but few examples of satire. These deal most 
lightly with the clergy and with religious subjects. If any such 
rude satire as the Fescennine verses of Rome found their way 
into the mouth of an improvising actor, we need not expect to 
find it in our copies, for they are undoubtedly marked by modifi- 
cations and omissions of much that was presented. Our manu- 
scripts are late "Renvid or newly translate" and may have never 
been intended for playbooks. The Chester manuscripts, for in- 
stance, must owe their existence to the desire of literary antiqua- 
ries either to preserve the old plays or possibly revive them at a 
time when miracle plays were almost gone out of fashion.'' 

No miracle cycle ever breathes a word of satire against a 
monk. The only men of the church who are even lightly touched 
are priests, friars, and the Pope. In the Chester plays, which 
are late, the Pope who is saved at Doomsday is made to confess 
to negligence in fulfilling Christ's commandments while the Pope 
who is damned, bitterly regrets his covetousness and simony. The 
satire on priests and friars is very faint. We have no picture of 
the fat,, indolent, begging friar or the deceitful pardoner such as 
we find in "Jack Upland" or in the "Song on the Friars"* — no 
such picture as we find in Chaucer,^ Heywood,^ or Lyndsay.*" 
This bareness of characterization is due, I think, to the didactic 
nature of the plays, to the class for whom they were written and 
to the censorship of the plays. Chaucer wrote for a limited 
2 



reading public; Heywood, for an aristocratic audience seated in 
a small hall, and not for an immense out-of-door audience of 
common people. Lyndsay's play is later than the York cycle, 
the Towneley, and Ludus Coventriae by almost a century. It 
represents the progressive thought of the sixteenth century in a 
morality in Scotland in contrast to the conservatism of the Ches- 
ter miracle cycle. Lyndsay, however, could well be a little bolder 
than the English author or scribe for he had the king of Scot- 
land at his back. 

Taking up the Chester cycle which is thought to be one of 
the oldest from early accounts of its performance and from the 
time of its performance — Whitsun week not Corpus Christi Day, 
we find little religious satire. The play on Doomsday,^ however, 
does represent two popes — one damned, the other, saved — in the 
embarrassing situation of confessing their sins. Here are the 
words of the Papa Damnatus : 

"Now booties is to aske mercye, 
For livinge higheste in eairth was I, 
And cuninge chosen in cleargye, 
And covetousness did me care ; 
Also silver and symoneye 
That bornes me nowe full witterlye 
For blisse 1 am full bare," 

Uti, w,.7-A.'^4 The infallibility of the Pope is a thing of the past when a 

?<»Ja i^iri,' I craft guild dares represent him before the masses as guilty of 
*^f^i,Js,trL I bribery, simony, and covetousness. But, as I have said, the cycle 
may have been a literary attempt. In representing one pope as 
damned and another as saved we have an instance of discrimina- 
tion so characteristic of old English writers. Their wish to be 
fair rendered them incapable of representing all popes as wicked. 
In this case, however, the Papa Salvatus is not shown as leading 
an exemplary life for he confesses: 

"Thy greate godheade, that is so good 
Me knewe 1 never, but ever was woode 

Worshippe for to wyn ; " 

The higheste office under thee 

In eirth thou putteith in 

Thou graunteste me, Lorde, through thy grace 

Petteres power and his place , 

Yet was I blente ! alas ! alas !"" 



19 

When I in eirth was at my will 
This worlde me blente lowde and still 
But thy commaundmente to fulfill 
I was full necligente." " 

There is no religious satire in the York plays ; in the Ludus 
Coventriae the nearest ap)proach to it is a didactic hint by 
Joachim on tithe-giving. After telHng how he divides his goods 
into three parts — one for himself, one for pilgrims, and "por" 
men and one for the temple, he adds : 

"So xulde every curat in this werde wyde 
Geve a part to his chauncel i wys 
A part to his parocheners that to povert slyde 
The thryd part to kepe for hym and his." '" 

In the remarks of the doctors in the temple, we expect sar- 
casm from the nature of the scene and their characters. One 
scornfully bids Jesus: 

"Goo hom, lytl babe, and sytt on thi moderes lappe 
And put a mokador aforn thi brest : 
And pray thi modyr to fede the with the pappe 
Of the for to lerne we desyre not to lest." '^ 

Again we are not surprised when the high-priest advises 
Pilate to bribe the soldiers to keep them from spreading the news 
of the Resurrection. In his philosophy he reminds us of Lang- 
land's Lady Meed of the fourteenth century. 

"For mede doth most in every quest 
And mede is mayster both est and west 
Now trewly seres, I held this best 
With mede men may bynde berys." " 

In the Crucifixion scene, the words of the executioners sug- 
gest realistically the mocking, jeering crowd of Jews mentioned in 
the Bible -.^^ 

"Lo, fela, here a lyth takkyd on a tre." 

" and I trowe thou art a worthy king!" 

"A good sere, tell me now what helpyth thi prophecy the?" 
, or any of thi fals prechyng!" 



"Come now down of that tre ! 
"Yf thu be Goddys sone, as thou dedyst teche 
fifrom the cros come now downe!" 



20 

Of all miracle plays, the Towneley contain the most satire, 
possibly because the author or one of the authors possessed 
greater literary power than did his contemporaries and was in- 
tellectually keener in seeing inconsistencies. He did not, how- 
ever, indulge in much religious satire. He evidently did not like 
the Lollards for he makes Titivillus in the Doomsday pageant 

say : 

"I was your chief tollare 
Nom am I master lollar and of sich men I mell me."" 

Later he boasts of having on his lists of doomed souls some 
men of the church : 

"Yet of these kyrkchaterars here ar a menee 
Of bargenars, okerars and lufars of symonee." " 

There may be a slight trace of satire when Cain unwilling to 
offer tithes slyly hints at the uselessness of such a practice: 

"My farthyng is in the preest hand 
Syn last tyme I offyrd." " 

Perhaps it may not be too far-fetched to see a touch of 
burlesque when one of the shepherds proposes gathering up the 
scraps of their supper : 

"Geder up, lo, lo, ye hungre begers ffrerys." " 

And later when Home chafifs Gyb on his Latin : 

"What speke ye here in myn eeres? 
Tell me no clerge, I hold you of freres 
Ye preche."' ^" 

The interlude of Mak in the Shepherds' Play undoubtedly 
has an idea of burlesque at its basis. The stolen sheep con- 
cealed by Mak in the cradle ; the search of the shepherds for their 
stolen property ; the discovery resulting from the desire of one 
of them to make a gift to Mak's new-born child may be a bur- 
lesque on what follows — the search of the shepherds for the 
Christ-Child and the ofifering of the customary gifts. This bur- 
lesque both Dean Joseph V. Denney and Dr. George H. McKnight 
have perceived. I think we may fairly classify this most famous 



21 

example of early English farce as a travesty written, however, 
with no idea of malice. 

Passing to the fragmentary cycles, we find no religious satire 
in them neither in the Norwich, the Newcastle, the Coventry nor 
in the Digby "Killing of the Children." The same thing is true 
of the apparently independent plays on Abraham and Isaac pre- 
served in the Dublin and in the Brome manuscripts. There is 
a similar lack of religious satire in the "Conversion of St. Paul," 
in "Dux Moraud." and in the "Croxton Play of the Sacrament." 
But in "Mary Magdalene" we do find a trace of satire and a rude 
burlesque of the church service. The boy twits the presbyter : 

"Ye have so fellyd yower belly with growell 
That it growitt grett as the dywll of hell ^ 
Onshaply thou art to see 
Thi body is so grett and wyde 
That never horse may thee byde 
exseptt thou breke his bakk asoundyr." "' 

After the religious satire conies political and social satire so 
closely connected that I shall consider them together. The Eng- 
lish have always felt that society reflected the evils of politics and 
even in their earliest drama have shown signs of discontent in 
their complaints against haughty lords and heavy taxes. In the 
Chester Plays, Joseph complains of the tribute: 

"Poor men's weale is ever in were 
I wan no good this seven yeaire 
Now comes the king's messingere 
To gette all that he maye." ^° 

The imperator confesses to gluttony, covetousness, and 
manslaughter ; 

"Wrong ever I wroughte to ech wighte 
For pynchynge poore in paine I pig'hte 
Religion I reaved against the righte""'^ 

The justice remembers with contrition his past life and con- 
fesses at the judgment seat : 

" falses causes took in hande 

And moche wooe did elles 

When I soughte silver or riches founde, of baron, burges or of baude 

His matter to further ever T would founde were it never so false 



22 

All mj' life I was ever bouiie 

To treble poore in tower and towne 

Payn holje churches possession 

And sharply them to shende 

To reve and robbe religion 

That was all my devocion.""* 

These instances are in a sense political, but those to follow 
are social dealing with classes of people, with merchants, tap- 
sters, brewers, and with the conventional satire on woman. For 
example, the merchant confesses to having purchased land falsely; 
having "occured and used wilfully" ; and to having staid at home 
from church. The mulier in the "Harrowing of Hell" also con- 
fesses to deception. She has sold adulterated ale and used false 
measures : 

"Some tyme 1 was a tavernere, 

A gentill gossipe and a tapstere 

Of wyne and ale a trustie brewer. 

Which wo hath we wroughte 

Of Cannes I kepte no trewe measuer, 

My cuppes I soulde at my pleasuer 

Deceavinge manye a creature, 

Tho my ale were naughte, 

And when I was a brewer longe 

With hoopes I made my ale stronge 

Ashes and erbes I blende amonge 

And marred so good maulte 

Therfore I maye my handes wringe 

Shake my cannes and cuppes ringe 

Sorowfull male I sicke and singe 

That ever I so dealed. 

Taverners, tapsters of this cittie 

Shal be promoted heare by me 

For breaking statutes of this countrey 

Hurtinge the commonwelth !""' 

Noah says of women : 

"Wemen be crabbed aye 
And non are mcke I dare well say."-"* 

The third shepherd expresses the same conventional idea: 

"For to good men this is not unknowne 
To husbandes that be heare aboutes 
That iche man must to his wife bowne. 
And commonlye for fear of a clowte."^ 



^2> 

In the Cornish plays there is a hint of inconsistency 
in the actions of pubhc ofificials, for instance, Pilate is anxious to 
hush up a matter when he sees danger threatening himself. He 
has just bitterly reproved the soldiers for having let Jesus escape, ' 

but when they in turn demand of him Joseph and Nicodemus who 
have miraculously escaped, he becomes very pleasant. They, 
however, reply with a touch of irony : 

"Since thou art so courteous 
We will do as thou sayest.""*' 

The Ludus Coventriae has a trace of political satire, class 
satire on the summoner, satire on fashions, and the conventional 
satire on woman ; of this, Joseph is the spokesman. After stren- 
uously objecting to the decision of the blossoming rods, he reluc- 
tantly becomes a bridegroom. But hear his protest : 

"What xuld I wedde? God forbede 
I am an old man, so God me spede. 
And wyth a wyff now to levj'n in drede 
It wore neyther sport nere game 

"An old man may never thryff 
With a yonge wyff so God me save ! 
Xuld I now in age begynne to dote, 
If I here chyde she wolde clowte my cote 
Blere myn ey, and pyke out a mote 
And thus oftyn tymes it is sene.'"'° 

Later he advises men against marriage saying : 

" • alle olde men to me take tent 

And weddyth no wyff in kynnys wyse 

That is a yonge wenche be myne asent 

ffor doute and drede and swyche servyse 

Alas ! alas ! my name is shent ! 

Alle men may me now dyspyse 

And seyn, "olde cokwold thi bowe is bent 

Newly now after the Frenche gyse.'"" 

And finally he concludes with a proverb verified as he thinks : 

"Here may alle men this proverb trow 
That many a man doth bete the bow 
Another man hath the brvdde."" 



24 

The summoner is represented as abusive and corrupt. He 
is evidently avaricious, for after reading a list of names of the 
people who should appear at court, he advises them to come 
with money if they expect to win their case: 

"And loke ye rynge wele in your purs 
ffor ellys your cause may specie the wurs."" 

In summoning Mary and Joseph he makes a threat thor- 
oughly in character with the usual idea of the summoner : 

'"But yet sum mede and ye me take 
I wyl with drawe my gret rough toth 
Gold or sylvyr I wyl not forsake 
But evyn as all somnores doth."^" 

In the sixth pageant there is a contrast drawn between the 
rich and the poor, but I think it can hardly be called satire. 

"ffor ryche men do shewe oftyntymes pompe and pride 
on holy dayes. as oftyn is sene 
Whan pore men passe and go besyde 
.A.t wurthy festys rich men wolle bene.'"* 

The first shepherd in the sixteenth pageant pathetically re- 
veals the hardships of the poor: 

"Myght we se onys that bryght on bed 
Oure sorow it wolde unbynde 
We xulde shadyr for no shoure."" 

Joseph also shrinks and complains of his hard lot : 

"Lord what travayl to man is wrought 
Rest in this werd behovyth hym non 
Octavyan our emperor sadly hath besought 
Our trybute hym to here, fTolk must forth ichon.""' 

In the twenty-fifth pageant of this cycle, we find Satan 
dressed as a gallant, haranguing the people. In his speech occurs 
the strongest satire in the miracles. He advises the assembled 
spectators to gather a fellowship after their own "entent" : 

"A beggerys dowtcre to make gret purvyauns 
To cownterfete a gentylwoman dysguysed as she can 
And yf mony lakkc. this is the ncwe chevesauns 



25 

With her prevy plesawns to gett it of sum man 

Her colere splayed and furryd with ermyn calabre or satan : 

A seyn to sell lechery to hem that wyl buy 

And thei that wyl not by it, yet inow xal thei han 

And telle hem it is for love, she may it not deney." 

He is very explicit on the proper dress of a gallant: 

"Off fyne cordewan a goodly peyre of long pekyd schon 
Hosyn enclosyd of the most costyous cloth of cremseyn 
Thus a bey to a gentleman to make comparycion 
With two doseyn poyntys of chevrell, the aglottes of sylver feyn. 

"A shert of feyn Holond, but care for the payment 
A stomacher of clere reynes the best may be browth 
Thow poverte be chef, lete pride be ther present 
And all tho that repreff pride, thou sette hem at nowth. 

"Cadace wolle or flokkys where it may be sowth 
To stufife withal thi dobbelet, and make the of proporcyon 
Two smale legges and a gret body, thow it ryme nowth. 
Yet loke that thou desyre to an the newe faccion. 

"A gowne of thre yerdys, loke thou make comparison 
Uuto all degrees dayly that passe thin astat 
A purse withoutyn mony. a daggere for devocyon 
And ther repref is of synne. loke thou make debat. 

"With syde lokkys I schrewe thin here to thi colere hangyng downe. 
To herborwe queke bestys that tekele men onyth 
An heye smal bonet for curing of the crowne 
And alle beggeres and pore pepyll have hem in dyspyte. 

"Onto the grete othys and lecherye gyff thi delyte 
To maynteyn thin astate lete brybory be present 
And }'f the law repreve the, say thow wylt ffyth, 
And gadere the a felashep after thin entent. 

"Loke thou sett not be precept nor be comawndement 
Both sevyls and canon sett thow at nowth 
Lette no membre of God but with othys be rent."" 

This long tirade is really a sermon in satire. Those who give 
themselves up to oaths, foolish fashions, hypocrisy, and im- 
morality are but following the advice of the devil. The method of 
attack — irony — is much more effective than any direct rebuke or 
generalized lament and the idea of making the devil the mouth- 



26 

piece of the ironical advice was a happy thought on the part of 
the author ; his chief lesson was spoken not by some pious ab- 
straction but by the devil, a character v^ho never failed to attract 
attention. 

The Towneley cycle contains more satire than the other 
miracles, but the subject-matter is much the same, — satire on 
woman, on classes, on misgovemment, and on fashions. It has 
no satire, however, as bitterly ironical as the quotation just given 
from the Ludus Coventriae. The pageant which furnishes the 
greatest opportunity for satire is, as in the Chester Plays the 
"Juditium." 

In this play the demon, Titivillus, refers to misgovemment 
when he spreads out his rolls and says triumphantly of the 
doomed souls whom he is soon to summon before the tribunal 
of the Lord : 

"Thise rolles 

Ar of bakbytars 

And fals indytars."'"* 

also when he speaks of the oppression of the poor 

"The pore pepyll must pay if oght be in honde 
The drede of God is away and lawe out of lande."™ 



"fals swerars shall hider com mo then a thowsand skore 
In sweryng thai grefe godys son and payn hym more and more 
Therfor mon thai with us won in hell for ever more 

I say this 
That rasers of the fals tax 

And gederars of greyn wax 
Diabolus est mendax 
Et pater eius."*" 

The speeches of both Pilate and Caiaphas are satire on the 
law. Pilate in his boastful way begins : 

"ffor I am he that may make or mar a man 
myself if I it say as men of cowrte now can 
Supporte a man today to morn agans hym than 
On both parties than I play 
And fenys me to ordan the ryght. 
But all fals indytars 
Quest mongers and Lurers 
And all thise fals out rydars 
Ar welcom to mj' sight."" 



^7 , 

In pageant twenty-two, he again shows his hypocrisy : 

"ffor like as on both sydys the iren the hamer makith playn 
So do 1, that the law has here in my kepyng 
The right side to socoure, certys, I am full bayn 
If I may get therby vantege or wynyng: 
Then to the fals parte I turne me agayn 
ffor I se more vayll will to me be risyng 
Thus every man to drede me shal be full fayn 
And all faynt of thare fayth to me be obeyng."*' 

Caiaphas speech, terse and to the point leaves the same im- 
pression of double-dealing: 

"Whoso kepis the lawe, I gess 
he gettis more by purches 
Then bi his fre rent."" 

The conditions of the poor are reflected in the first and in 
the second Shepherds' Play. The first shepherd complains of 
the tax: 

"ffermes thyk are comyng, my purs is bot wake 
I have nerehand nothynge to pay nor to take."** 

The second shepherd, also, has a grievance. He is tired of 
the oppression and arrogance of upstarts — retainers of the great 
lords. He prays : 

"Both bosters and bragers god kepe us fro, 
That with thare long dagers dos mekyll wo ; 
ffrom all byll hagers with colknyfys that go 
Sich wryers and wragers gose to and fro 

ffor to crak. 
who says hym agane 
Were better be slane 
Both plogh and wane. 
Amendys will not make. 

He will make it as proud a lorde he were 

with a hede lyke a clowde ffeltered his here 

He spekys on lowde with a grym bere 

I wold not have trowde so gayly in gere 

As he glydys 

I wote not the better 

Nor wheder is gretter 

The lad or the master 



28 

So slowtly he strydys 

If he aske me oght that he wold to his pay, 

fful dere bese it boght if I say nay."*' 

In pageant XII p. 103 i. 92 the first shepherd continues the 
lament 

"Is none in this ryke a shepard farys wars." 

The second rejoins: 

"Poore men ar in the dyke and ofttyme mars 
The world is slyke, also helpars 
Is none here.'"*' 

In the Second Shepherds' Play there is the same complaint 
of oppression : 

"But we sely shepardes that walkyn on the moore. 
In fayth we are nere handys outt of the dore 
No wonder as it standys if we be poore 
ffor the tylthe of our landys ys falow as the flore 

As ye ken 

We ar so hamyd 

ffortaxed and hand tamyd 

with thyse gentlery men, 

"Thus thay refe us oure rest oure lady theym wary 
These men that ar lord fest cause thay the ploughe tary 
That men say is for the beste we fynde it contrary 
Thus ar husbandys opprest in pointe to myscary 

On lyfe. 
Thus hold thay vs hunder 
Thus thay bryng vs in blonder 

It were greatte wonder 
And ever shuld we thryfe. 



fifor may he gett a paynt slefe or a broche now on dayes 
wo is hym that hym grefe or onyst agane says 
Dar noman hym reprefe what mastry he mays 
And yet may noman lef oone word that he says 

No letter. 
He can make purveance 
With boste and bragance 
And all is thrugh mantenance 
Of men that are gretter. 



-9 



'Ther shall com a swane as prowde as a po 
he must borow my wane, my ploghe also 
Them I am full fane to graunt or he go, 
Thus lyf we in payn. Anger, and wo 

By nyght and day ! 
He must have if he langyd 

If I shuld forgang it 
I were better be hangyd 
Then oones say hym nay. 



"Thise laddys thai leven as lordys riall."*' 

Titivillus indulges in class satire when he describes the 
misers : 

"Thar neghburs thai towchid with wordys full ill 
The wurst ay thai sowchid and had no skill 



The pennys thai powchid and held thaym still 
The negons thai mowchid and brad no will 

fFor hart fare 
Bot riche and ill-dedy 
Gederand and gredy ' 

Sore napand and nedy 
Youre godys for to spare."" 

The intemperate also cotne in for a share of his abuse. 

"Thai call and thai cry go we now, go ! 
I dy nere for dry and ther syt thai so 
All nyght 

With hawvell and lawvell 
Syngyng of lawvell 
Thise ar howndys of hell."** 

Dice players are given a bad character: 

"Thise dysars and thise hullars 
Thise cokkers and thise hollars 
And all purs-cuttars 

Bese well war of thise men."™ 

, The general wickedness of the world is shown by the number 
of souls who seek admittance into hell. The devil Titivillus in 
despair exclaims : 

"Saules cam so thyk now late unto hell 
As ever 
Oure porter at hell gate 



30 

Is haldyn so strate 
Up erly and down late 
he rystys never."" 

On dress there is the following tirade: 

"Gay gere and witless his hoode set on koket, 
As prowde as pennyles his slefe has no poket, 

fful redles ; 
With thare hemmyd shoyn 
All this must be done 
Bot syre is out at hye noyn 
And his barnes bredeles. 

"A home and a duch ax his slefe must be flekyt 
A syde hede and a fare fax his gowne must be spekytt."" 

also — 

"An Nell with hir nyfyls of crips and of sylke 
Tent well youre twyfyls youre nek abowte as mylke 
With your bendys and your bridyyls of Sathan — '"^ 

In pageant XXX, Titivillus driving the lost souls before him, 
sarcastically reminds them of their vanity : 

"Gay gyrdyls, jagged hode. prankyd gownes, whedir?"" 

This was aimed at the men as well as at the women. The 
men, however, are not satirized as a class. The women are : 
the Wakefield dramatist seems to find great pleasure in ridiculing 
their shrewishness and their vanity. Noah's wife expresses her- 
self on the troubles of married life and wishes for freedom. 
She speaks according to the shrewish character that is given her 
in all the miracle cycles except the Ludus Conventriae and the 
Cornish. 

"Lord, I were at ese and hertly full hoylle 
Might I onys have a measse of wedows coyll ; 
ffor thi saul, without lese shuld I dele penny doyll 
So wold mo, no frese, that 1 se on this sole 
Of wifis that ar here, 
ffor the life that thay leyd 
Wold thare husbandis were dede 
ffor, as ever I ate brede 
So wold I oure svre wer.e.'''* 



3^ 

We get the other side of the story when Noah complains of 
his wife's irritabiHty: 

"flfor she is full tethee 
ffor littill oft angre 
If any thyng wrang be 
Soyne is she wroth."" 

And also when he advises young men on the management of 
their wives : 

"Yee men that has wifis whyls they are yong 
If ye luf youre lifis chastice thare tong."" 

Joseph, too, complains saying of Mary : 

"Certys I forthynk sore of hir dede 
Bot is long of yowth-hede 
All sich wanton playes ; 
fTor yong women wyll nedys play them" '^ 



Of the same nature is the proverb which Gyb quotes to his 
fellow-shepherds : 

"A man may not wyfe 
And also thryfe 
And all in a yere."^* 

A similar complaint against marriage follows in pageant 
thirteen : 

"These men that ar wed have not all thare wyll 
When they ar full hard sted thay sygh full styll 
God wayte thay ar led full hard and full yll, 
In bower nor in bed thay say noght ther tyll 
This tyde. 



Wo is hym that is bun 
fifor he must abyde 



Som men wyll iiave two wyfis and som men thre, 

In store 

Some are wo that has any, 

But so far can I 

Wo is hym that has many 

ffor he felys sore. 



2>2 

"Bot yong men of wowyng for God that you boght 
Be well war of wedying and thynk in youre thoght 
'had I wyst'is a thyng it semys of noght 
Mekyll styll mowrnyng has wedyng home broght, 

And grefys. 
With many a sharp showre 
ffor thou may cache in an owre 
That shall (savour) fulle sowre 
As long as thou lyfifys.'"" 

In pageant XXXVIII, Paul is quoted as saying: 

"Ther is no trust in woman's saw 
No trast forth to belefe 
ffor with thare quayntyse and thare gyle 
Can they laghe and wepe som while 
And yit nothyng theym grefe. 

"In our bookes thus fynde we wretyn 
All manere of men well it wyttyn 

Of women on this wyse ; 
Till an appyl she is lyke — 
Withoutten faill ther is non slyke 

In horde ther it lyse. 

Bot if a man assay it witter ly 
It is full roten inwardly 
At the colke within ; 
Wherfor in woman is no laghe 
ffor she is withoutten aghe 
As Crist me lowse of syn 
Therfor trast we not trystely 
Bot if we sagh it witterly 
Than wold we trastly trow 
In womans saw affy we noght 
ffor thay ar fekill in word and thoght." '^ 

Even doubting Thomas takes up the wearisome subject when 
he says to his awe-stricken companions : 

"Ye ar as women rad for blood and lyghtly oft solaced 
It was a ghost before you stood. ""^ 

In pageant XXX some satirical dialogue passes between th« 
demons as they look over their rolls : 

"has thou oght writen there of the femynyn gendere?" 
"Yei, mo then I may here of rolles for to render 
Thai ar sharp as a spere if thai seme but slender 



33 

Thai ar ever in were if thai be tender 

yll fetyld 
She that is most meke 
When she semys full seke 
She can rase up a reke 

if she be well nettyld."*^ 

"Of femellys a quantite here fynde I parte."" 

On woman's vanity and deceitfulness there is the following: 

"If she be never so fowll a dowde with her kelles and her pynnes 
The shrew hir self can shrowde both hir chekys and hir chynnes 
She can make it full prowde with japes and with gynnes 
hir hede as hy as a clowde hot no shame of hir synnes 

Thai f ele : 
When she is thus paynt 
She makys it so quaynte 
She lookys like a saynte 
And wars then the dayle 

"She is hornyd like a cow — ""^ 

Joseph's complaint of marriage is as follows: 

"howsehold and husbandry 
fiful sore it may ban 
That bargan dere I by 
Yong men, bewar, red I 
Wedyng makes me all wan.'"*" 

Of the independent plays possibly once forming part of a 
Cycle, the Norwich, the Newcastle, and the two plays on Abra- 
ham arid Isaac are not satirical. The two Coventry plays, how- 
ever, show satire on woman. Here as in the complete cycles, 
Joseph complains at length :^^ 

"Wele-awey ! woman now ma}- I goo 
Begyld as many another vs." 

"For the that woll nott there wyffis plese 
Ofte tymes schall sufifur moche dysees ; 

Therefore I holde hym well at es 
That hathe doo with non. 

"So full of feyre wordis these wemen be 
Thatt men thereto must nedis agre." 

The maner of my wj^fif ys soo 
3 That with hyr nedis must I goo 



34 

Wheddur I wyll or nyll. 
Now ys nott this a cumburs lyff? 
Loo, sirs, what yit ys to have a wyff. 
Yet had I leyver. nor to live in strytif 
Apply evyii to hir wyll." 

In the Digby "Killing of the Children", Watkyn the boast- 
ful soldier is represented as very fearful of an angry woman. 
His remarks can scarcely be called satire, but they do show the 
fondness of the mediaeval author for twitting woman : 

"But yitt 1 drede no thyng more than a woman with a Rokke 
ffor if I se ony suche, be my feith I come agen.""' 

"The Conversion of St. Paul" shows sarcasm in the remarks 
of Saul's servant to the hostler; and the "Croxton Play of the 
Sacrament" has a comic character Colle take off the failing of 
his master. Doctor Brendyche of Brabant: 

"He ys a man off all scyence 
But off thryfte — I may yow dyspence ! 
He syttyth with sum tapstere in the spence 
Hys hoode there wyll he sell 
He seeth as well at noone as at nyght 
And sumtyme by a candelleyt 
Can gyff a judgment aryght 
As he that hath no eyn 
In every taverne he ys detter.""" 

The satire in the miracle plays, cyclic and non-cyclic, is for 
the most part general and conventional. There is the satire on 
woman ; that on the clergy somewhat limited in amount and 
scope, it is true, but nevertheless depicting the Pope as guilty 
of simony and covetousness and hinting that perhaps tithe-giving 
was a useless practice. We have only to look to the early poems 
and songs in English to see how meagre and weak these dramas 
are in the satirical quality. For example, note the "Song against 
the Friars." The first stanza makes them more devout than 
monks, priests, or canons. The second ironically continues : 

"Men may se by thair contynaunce 
That thai are men of grete penaunce 
And also that thair sustynaunce 

Symple is and wayke. 
I have lyved now fourty yere 
And fatter men about the neres 



35 

Yit sawe I never then are these frers 
In contreys ther thai rayke 
Meteles so megre are thai made 
And penaunces puttes hem doun 
That ichon is an hors lade 
When he shall trusse of town.'"" 

The nearest approach to any thing like it in length or satirical 
power is the twenty-fifth pageant of Ludus Coventriae in which 
Lucifer satirizes fashions, hypocrisy, and immorality. 

The strongest satire is found in the Chester Plays, in the 
Ludus Coventriae, and in the Towneley collection. As to quantity 
and variety, the Towneley cycle heads the list. 

The subjects of miracle satire range over pope, friar, priest, 
Lollard ; over imperator, rex, lord, lawyer, questmonger, justice, 
tax-collector, summoner, merchant, and tapster. It attacks drink- 
ing, dicing, miserliness, women, fashions, hypocrisy, bribery, the 
oppression of the poor, the arrogance of lords and upstarts, and 
the failure of officials to execute the laws. There are, however, 
but few references to each of the following — Lollards, friars, 
priests, and popes. The men of the church were not so far as 
xve can determine from the plays subject to any satire other than 
a chance sling, such as ridicule of their Latin and of their custom 
of begging. Monks go scot-free perhaps because monkish au- 
thors considered it a violation of good taste and good sense to 
ridicule their own institution and its members before a demo- 
cratic audience — an audience whose esteem they wished to keep. 
The Pope is nowhere mentioned in the fifteenth century manu- 
scripts of miracles. It is" only in the late Chester Plays of the six- 
teenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth that he is 
shown in the Doomsday pageant. There the Dance of Death 
motife may have had something to do with his admission. 

The oppression of the poor was a favorite subject. Joseph 
and the shepherds complain of taxes and hardships. The Towne- 
ley Plays add to the taxes the insults which the poor had to suffer 
at the hands of swaggering upstarts and others who did much as 
they pleased, supported as they were by the maintenance of some 
great lord whose livery they wore. Here we come close to the 
satire found in the morality "Wisdom" which was of the same 
period as the Towneley Plays ; and to that of the fourteenth 
century poem "On the Servants of the Rich." 



CHAPTER III. 



STAIRK IN THE PRE-TUDOR MORALITIES. 

According- to Creizenach literary historians have given the 
name moraHty to all plays written during the latter part of the 
Middle Ages and at the time of the Reformation, the characters 
of which are wholly or mainly personified abstractions. For 
studying these plays, the classification of the Cambridge History 
of English Literature' seems best. This groups them under the 
following heads: (i) Pre-Tudor Moralities. (2) Earlier Tudor 
Moralities, (3) Elizabethan Moralities. 

Classified as l*re-Tudor Moralities are the following plays: 
the "Pride of Life", "The Castle of Perseverance". "Mind, Will 
and Untlerstanding". and "Mankind". These plays have been 
given the following dates by scholars:' I4[0, 1425, 1460-3. 1475. 
They are the earliest specimens of English Moralities extant. .As 
the dates show they were contemporary with the miracle cycles. 
"Wisdom" or "Mind Will and Un 'erstanding" ; and ''Mankind'^ 
have approximatelv the same date as the "'S'ork Plays", the 
"Ludus Coventriae", and the Towneley Plays. We have foimd 
some satire in the miracles ; we may expect to find a greater 
amount in the moralities since they ('ealt with questions of 
ethics, and even went so far as to discuss social, political, and 
religious problems; and since they were often in their early 
history and almost exclusively in their later productions, 
presented before an aristijcratic and therefore a limited 
audience. "Wisdom" was probably presented in an abbey 
before a body of monks. Its author was in all proba- 
bility a monk who felt called upon to satirize the 
growing spirit of apostasy among the monks and the practice of 
maintenance among the lords and the nobles. On the other hand 
"The Castle of Perseverance" from its unique stage-drawing 
must have been presented out of doors and before an immense 
popular audience possibly very much the, same kind of audienc^ 
as gathered to see the "Ludus Coventriae" which from stage- 
directions'' must have been presented on a fixed stage with several 



37 

pageants. Whether these were arranged in a circle or not, we do 
not know. 

The satire in the oldest morality, "The Pride of Life" is of 
the nature of a generalized lament spoken by a bishop who sees 
nothing but evil in the times. The world no longer reverences 
God ; might makes right ; the rich oppress the poor ; and the 
people are given up to bribery, lechery, and gluttony. Here is 
his criticism of the age :* 

"Ye world is nou, so wo lo wo 
in sue bal i bound 
yat dred of god is al ago 
&treut is go to ground 

"med is mad a demis man 
streyint bet it ye lau 
gocyl is mad a cepman 
&truyt is don of dau. 

"Wyt is nou al trecuri 
oyis fals &gret 
play is nou uileny 
&corteysi is let 

"lou is nou al lecuri 
cildrin bet onlerit ; 
halliday is glotuni : 
yis Ian is bot irerit. 

"slot men blet bleynd 
&lokit al amis 
he bicomit onkynd 
&yat is reut i uis 

"frend may no man find 
of fremit ne of sib 
ye ded bet out of mind 
gret soru it is to lib. 

"Yes ricmen bet reuthyles , 
ye por got to ground, 
&fals men bet schanles : 
the sot ic hau i found 



"paraventur men halt me a fol 
to sig yat fot tal ; 
yai farit as ficis in a pol ; 
ye gret eteit ye smal. 



38 

, "ric men spart for noying 

to do the por worng; 
yai yingit not on hen ending 
ne on det, yat is so strong. 

"noyir yai louit god, ne dredit 
noyir him no his lauis ; 
touart hel fast him draut 
ayeins har ending daus." 

The "Castle of Perseverance" which is thought to date from 
1425 is largely didactic. Here and there is a hint of satire on 
executors ; on the pope, on abbeys ; on fashions ; on the power of 
money ; and on the fickleness of fortune. Adultery, sloth, deceit, 
extortion, false assize, and simony are also mentioned. The 
abstraction Avaricia speaks in character. He is a satire on the 
universal desire of men to make money. Superbia is a satire on 
the desire to look well. We find on executors the following 
criticism : i 

"he sendyth aftyr his sekkatours, ful fekyl to fynd 
&his eyr aftyrward comyth evere behynde, 
I wot not who is his name, for he hym not knowe 

"Man knowe not who schal be his eyr and governe his good 
he caryth mor for his catel thanne for his cursyd synne : 
to put his good in governaunce he mengyth his mod 
he wolde that it were scyftyd amongis his ny kynne 
but ther schal com a lythyr ladde with a torne hod 
I wot nevere who schal be his name, his clothis be ful thynne 
schal eryth the erytage that nevere was of hys blod 
whanne al his lyfe is lytyd upon a lytyl pynne at the laste."^ 

Avarice's advice to Mankind reminds us of that of Lucifer 
to the audience in the "Ludus Coventriae" : 

"thou must gyfe thee to symonye 
extorsion and false asyse 
helpe no man but thou have why ; 
pay not thi servauntys here serwyse. 
thi neyborys, loke thou dystroye 
tythe not on no wyse ! 
here no begger, thou he crye, 
&thanne schalt thou ful sone ryse 
&whanne thou usyste marchaundyse 
loke that thou be sotel of sleytys, 
and also swere al be deseytys, 



39 

bye and sell be fals weytys 
for that is kynde coveytyse. 



"be the peny in thi purs 
lete them cursyn &don here beste' 

to pore men take none entent."^ 

Accidia says : 

"Men of relygyon I rewle in my ryth.'" 

Superbia advises : 

"Use these new Lettes 
loke thou blowe mekyl host 
with longe Cracows on thi schon 
Jagge thi clothis in every cost.'" 

Mankind is also advised to show anger :^° 
"be also wroth as thou were wode 



be redy to spylle mans blod 
"speke thi neybour mekyl schame 
pot on hem sum fals fame." 

Mankind invites Envy to sit with him saying: 

"Cum syt here softe ! 
For in abbeys thou dwellyst ful ofte.'"" 

Some satire in the form of advice to mankind on fasting 

follows : 

"Fast no day, I rede be the rode 
Thou chyde these fastyng cherlys." '" 

Mankind comments on adultery ; 

Spousebreche is a frend ryth fre; 
Men use that mo thanne inowe;" 

And when Accidia says : 

Whanne the messe-belle goth 
lye stylle, man, &take non hede 
Chyrche goynge thou forsake.'"* 



he replies ; 



40 



"Men lofe wel now to lye stylle 
In bedde to take a charowe swot 
To chyrcheward is not here wylle." 



Accidia like the demon in the Towneley "Juditium" re- 
joices in the number of people who are under his sway:" 

"XXXti thousende that I wel knowe, 
In my lyf lovely I lede. 
that had levere syttyn at the ale, 
iij mens songs to syngyn lowde 
thanne toward the chyrche for to crowde." 

Avarice dwells on the power of money :^^ 

"thi purs schal be thi best frende 
thow thou syt al day and prey 
no man schal com to thee nor sende ; 
but if thou have a peny to pey, 
men schul to the thanne lystyn &lende." 

he also says :^® 

"it is good whon so the wynde blowe 
A man to have sum-what of his owe." 

on the other hand, Abstinencia presents the fickleness of fortune :" 

"Worldis wele is lyke a iij-foted stole 
it faylyt a man at hys most nede." 



says: ^^ 



Be he never so ryche of worldis wone,^ 
hys seketowris schul makyn here mone 
'Make us mery & lete hym gone ! 
he was a good felawe' 
"the ton sekatour seyth to the tothyr, 
'make we mery & a ryche fest 
& lete hym lyn in dedis fodyr.' " 

Mankind, however, realizes the value of money, for he 

"Penyman is mekyl in mynde 



"Penyman best may spede 
he is a duke to don a dede 
now in every place." 



41 

He continues his proverbial speeches :-- 

" 'More & more' in many a place 
certys that song is oftyn songe. 



"Inow, Inow was nevere songe." 

Avarice lends Mankind money but gives him advice against 
lending it :-^ 

"Lene no man hereof for no karke, 
thou he schuld he hange be the throte, 
monke nor Frere, prest nor clerke 
ne helpe therwith chyrche nor cote 
tyl deth thi body delue. 
thou he schuld sterve in a caue 
lete no pore man ther of haue." 

"Wisdom" or "Mind Will and Understanding'" is for the 
greater part didactic. Written about 1460 and as Dr. Walter 
Kay Smart-* has said for the purpose of counteracting the grow- 
ing spirit of apostasy among the monks, it does show considerable 
satire on the political and social corruptions of that time. The 
satire occurs in the stages of the plot known as Temptation and 
Life-in-Sin. 

Lucifer dressed in his favorite costume — that of the gallant — 
advises the characters. Mind, Will and Understanding, who must 
have been costumed as monks, to leave their life of contempla- 
tion :-^ 

''Leave your stodyes, thow (they) ben dywyn ; 
Yowur prayers, yowur penance, of Ipocryttis the syne 
And lede a comun lyff ! 
What synne in met, in hale, in wyn ! 



"Ser by Sent Powle !"" 
But trust not thes prechors, for they be not goode, 
For they flatter & lye as they were woode 
Ther ys a wolffe in a lambys skyn." 

Satire on the times appears in Wyll's speech on lechery to 
which he proposes to abandon himself. He refers to it — "As was 
sumtyme the gyse of Frawnce". His speeches and those of Mind 
and Understanding show the prevailing evils of the day — avarice, 
maintenance, and immorality. Understanding says :-^ 



42 

"The ryche covetyse, wo, dare blame, 
Off govell and symony thow he here the name 
To be fals, men report it game." 

Wyll adds in a similar tone:-^ 

'"And of lechery to make avawnte 
Men fors yt no more than drynke atawnt 
Thes thyngis be now so conversant 
We seme yt no schame." 

From Mynde, we have;'" 

"Thys ys a cause of my worschyppe 
I serve myghty lordeschyppe 
Therfor moche folke me dredis 
Men sew ti my frendeschyppe 
I supporte hem by lordeschyppe ; 
For to gette goode, this a grett spede ys." 

We learn Understanding's methods from this :^*' 

"And I use Jirowry 
Embrace questis of perjury 
Choppe and chonge with symonye 
&take large jeftis 
By the cause never so try 
I preve yt fals, I swere, I lye." 

In the following speeches. Wyll comments on immorality 

"Few placis now ther be, 
But onclennes we xall ther see" 



Lust ys now comun as the way." 

Mynd discusses law :^- 

"Law procedyth not for meyntnance" 
"Wo will have law must have monye." 

And on lordship he says :^^ 

"Wo Inrdschyppe xall sew, must it bye. 

Wyll supports this statement:^* 

"Ther poverty ys the male-wrye 
Thow rvght be, he xall nevermrenewe. 



43 

Mynde reminds us of Lady Meed in "Piers Plowman", and 
of the advice of the high-priest in "Ludus Coventriae" :^^ 

"Wrong ys born upe boldly 
Thow all the worlde know yt opynly 
Mayntnance ys now so myghty 
And all ys for mede." 

Understanding brings up the conventional complaint against 
law :^^ 

"The law ys so coloryde falsly 
By sleytes and by perjury 
Brybys be so gredy 

that to the pore, trowth ys take ryght nought 
a hede." 



Wyll says:^ 



"Mayntnaunce &perjury now stande 
Ther wer never so moche reynande 
Sith Gode was bore." 

Mynde adds :"^ 

"And lechery was never more usande 
Off lernyde and lewyde in this lande." 

Perjury and Wyll characterize the Holborn jury which was 
noted for its corruption :^^ 

"Thys menys consyens ys so streytt 
That they report as mede yewt (beyght) 
Here is the quest of Holborn an euyll endyrecte 
They daunce all the londe hydyr &thedyr." 



"Have they a brybe, have they no care 
Wo hath wronge or ryght. "^" 

The three Mights lay plans for their future action. Under- 
standing proposes to go to Westminster :*^ 

"At Westmynster without varyance 
the nex terme xall me avawnce 
For retoryns, for enbraces, for recordaunce." 



44 

Mynd will be at St. Pauls :*^ 

"And at the parvyse I wyll be 
At Powlys betwyn ij and iij 
With a menye folowynge me." 

He with Understanding will fight and arrest the husband of 
Cousin Janet with whom Will has an intrigue :*^ 

"Arest hym fyrst to pes for fyght 
Than in another schere hym endyght 
He ne xall wete by wom ne howe ' 
Have hym in the Marschalse anyght 
Than to the Amralte for they wyll byght 
A 'prevenire facias' than have as tyght 
And thou xalt hurle hym so that he xall have inow." 

In "Mankind" we come to a morality written about 1475, 
which contains more realism and rough humor than the preced- 
ing plays. The element of burlesque for comic effect enters in the 
take-off on Mankind's prayer and in the court-scene where Man- 
kind is initiated by New Guise, Nowadays and Nought. There 
are frequent references to localities and numerous sarcastic re- 
marks from the vices, for instance, New Guise speaking to Mercy 
says :** 

"Ey, ey ! yowur body ys full of Englysch Latin" 



"Now opyn yowur sachell with Laten wordis 
And sey me this in clerycall manere." 

There is possibly a sly touch of satire in the long speeches 
sprinkled throughout Mercy's speeches. The author at any rate 
seems to have loaded the dice against his good character and to 
have joined with the vices in making sport of him. Mercy warns 
Mankind against the three vices :*^ 

"thei harde not a masse this twelmonyth 
I dare well sei." 

Nought warrants this accusation when he introduces him- 
self as having been with the "comyn tapster of Bury." He 
boasts of his ability to "pype in a Walsyngham Wystyll." 

New Gyse maps out his itineracy evidently referring to well- 
known characters and places :*^ 



45 

I "FyTst 1 s.d\\ begyn at Master Huntyngton of Sanstotl 

Fro the-ns 1 xall go to Wylliam Thurlcy of Hanstoii 
And so forth to Rycharde of Trumpyngton. 

Nowadays has a similar purpose in mind, New Gyse knows 
the danger of their undertaking :*" 

"If we may be take, we com no more hethyr 
lett us con well our neke verse 
That we have not a cheke." 

Nowadays is not thoughtful of future dangers. He con- 
tinues planning. 

"A chyrche her besyde xall pay for ale, brede, &wyn" *" 

Later New Gyse comes running in with a halter about his 
neck. He explains his situation to Mankind by saying that he is 
wearing "Sent Awdrys holy bende", for 

I 
"I have a lytyll dyshes as yt plese god to sende 
Wyth a running rynge-worme."" 

In the burlesque court-scene. Mankind is received into the 
coiupaiiy of the vices by answering "I wyll, ser" to the questions 
put to him: (i) if he will commit adultery, (2) if he will rob, 
steal, and kill (3) if he will visit taverns, forbear mass, matins, 
hours, and prime. He is then instructed to carry a long "da 
pacem."^° 

The satire in these Pre-Tudor Moralities varies from the 
dull .generalized lament in the "Pride of Life" to a more specific 
attack on follies in the "Castle of Perseverance", "Wisdom", and 
"Mankind". There is comment upon the irony of life, — the use- 
lessness of hoarding up wealth for an unknown heir, possibly the 
fickle executor. There is ironical advice to yield to the Seven 
Deadly Sins — to practice extortion and simony, to slander one's 
neighbors, to ignore the poor, and to assume a swaggering air. 
The prevalence of slothfulness and immorality is also noted. 
Maintenance, perjury, and the spirit of apostasy among monks 
bear the brunt of the attack. Besides this last there is little satire 
on religion. Mankind hints that Envy's home is in abbeys; and 
Lucifer advises the three Mights against the flatteries of "preach- 
ers". 



CHAPTER IV. 



SATIRE IN THE EARLY TUDOR MORALITIES. 

The division of Early Tudor Moralities includes the fol- 
lowing plays; "Four Elements", "Mundus et Infans", "Every- 
man", "Hickscorner", "Magnificence", "Nature", "Wyt and 
Science", "Kynge Johan", "Lusty Juventus", "Respublica", 
"Youth", and John Bale's "Thre Lawes". 

In treating these plays I shall consider "Mundus et Infans" 
first, as it was probably written in the latter part of the fifteenth 
century although it was not printed until 1522. 

The play does not contain much satire. Manhood calls con- 
science "false flattering frere" and Folly gives this account of 
himself :^ 

"Over London bridge I ran 
And straightway to the stews I came 
And took lodging for a night 
And there I found my brother Lechery 

Straight to all the freres 

And with them I dwelled many years 

And they crowned Folly a king — 

Into abbeys and nunneries also 

By my faith sir into London I ran 

To the tavern to drink the wine. 

And then to the inns I took the wav 

And there I was not welcome to the o'^tlcr 

But I was welcome to the fair tapster 

And to all the household I was ryght l)c:'.r"' 

He also says that he has lived long in London, was born in 
Holborn and is well known at Westminster.- 

"To Westminster I used to wend 
For T am a servant of the law 
Covetise is mine own fellow 
We twain plete for the king 
And poor men that come from LTpland 
We will take their matter in hand 
be it right or wrong 
Their thrift with us shall wend." 
46 



47 
London seems to be considered the home of folly; Manhood 



says :^ 



'Folly will me lead to London to learn revel 
To London to seek Folly will I fare." 



There are also references to Newgate and Eastcheap.* 
In "Four Elements" written between 1515 and 1520 we have 
the first morality to change the subject of instruction from re- 
ligion to science. The author in the prologue given to the mes- 
senger, writes our earliest bit of dramtic literary satire. He 
satirizes both the subject-matter of the books of his day and the 
neglect of the English tongue :^ 

"What number of books in our tongue maternal 
Of toys and trifles be made and imprinted 
And few of them of matter substantial ; 
For though many make books, yet unneth ye shall 
In our English tongue find any works 
Of cunning, that is regarded by clerks. 



If clerks in their realm would take pain so, 
Considering that our tongue is now sufficient 
To expound any hard sentence evident, 
They might, if they would, in our English tongue 
Write works of gravity among. 



"But now so it is, that in our English tongue 
Many one there is, that can but read and write 
For his pleasure will oft presume among 
New books to compile and ballads to indite. 
Some of love or other matter not worth a mite 
Some to obtain favor will flatter and glose 
Some write curious terms nothing to purpose." 

The messenger's speech also includes a satire on the high es- 
timation of riches :^ 

"But he that for a commonwealth busily 
Studieth and laboureth, and liveth by God's law 
Except he wax rich, men count him but a daw. 
So he that is rich is ever honoured 
Although he have got it never so falsely." 

Sensual Appetite, who leads Humanity off to the tavern, re- 
fers to the king's servant as being the cause of the scanty fare :^ 



48 



^ is for capons 

Ye can get none 

The king's taker took up each one." 



He finds the taverner ready to crack a joke on woman. The 
latter says when asked for quail because it is light of digestion 
from ''their continual moving", that he knows a still lighter 
meat — woman's tongue — "for that is ever stirring." 

Passing to the moral play "Everyman" (1525) we find little 
satire. God complains of the devotion to riches and to selfish 

interests i*' 

"In worldly riches is all their mind." 



"For now one would by envy another up eat; 
"Charity they do all clean forget." 

Knowledge gives a bit of religious satire :^ 

"Sinful priests giveth the sinners example bad 
i Their children sitteth by other men's fires I have heard, 

And some haunteth women's company 
With unclean life, as lusts of lechery." 

In "Hickscorner" we find a different kind of morality. It 
has none of the dignity of "Everyman". It deals with low types. 
Pity appears with a generalized lament on the times and is 
scoffed at by the libertine Hickscorner, and by his accomplices, 
Imagination and Freewill. First the lament :^° 

"I have heard many men complain piteously 
They say they be smitten with the swerd of poverty. 



Few friends poverty doth find 

And these rich men been unkind 

For their neighbours they will nought do 

Widows doth curse lords and gentlemen 

For they constrain them to marry with their men 

Yea whether they will or no. 

Men marry for good, and that is damnable 

Yea with old women that is fifty and beyond." 

Here the author agrees with "Piers Plowman" on the sub- 
ject of marriage. He continues :^^ 

"Priests lack utterance to show their cuning 
People have now small devotion 



49 

And all the while that clerks do use so great sin 
Among the lay people look never for no mending." 

Imagination, one of the vices, characterizes himself as fol- 
lows :^^ 

"I can imagine things subtle 
For to get money plenty 
In Westminster Hall every term I am 
To me is kin many a great gentleman 
I am knowen in every country 
And I were dead, the lawyers thrift were lost 
For this will I do, if men would do cost 
Prove right wrong, and all by reason 
And make men lose house and land." 



Peach men of treason privily I can " 

And when we list, to hang a true man 

If they will be money tell 

Thieves I can help out of prison 

And into lords favours I can get me soon 

And be of their privy council 

I can look in a man's face and pick his purse 

And tell new tidings that never was true iwis 

For my hood is all lined with lesing." 

Freewill interrupts with. "Yea, but went ye never to Tyburn 
a pilgrimage?" 

Imagination answers :'* 

"No, iwis, nor none of my linege 
For we be clerks all and can our neck verse 
And with an ointment the judges han I can grease 
That will heal sores that be incurable." 

Hickscorner represented as a boisterous sailor, reports as 
sunk in the sea all true religious women, true maidens, true 
monks, alms-deed doers, true buyers and sellers, true married 
people, and good rich men that helpeth folk out of prison. In his 
own boat came Falsehood, Favell, Jollity, thieves, whores, 
liars, backbiters, flatterers, brawlers, walkers by night, murderers, 
oppressors, swearers, false law, wanton wenches and hatred. 

Freewill shows some of New-gyse's humor when he speaks of 
the gyves as "a medicine for a pair of sore shins". An op- 
portunity comes later for him to have the medicine administered. 
He speaks of the experience -.^^ 



50 

"For woe then I wist not what to have done 
And all because I lacked money 
But a friend in court is worth a penny in purse." 

Pity again breaks forth into a tirade against the sins of the 
people — their use of oaths, their fondness of extreme fashions, 
the inefficiency of mayors, the injustice of lawyers, and the 
general immorality of the young r^*^ 

"Worse was it never 
We have plenty of great oaths 
And cloth enough in our clothes 
But charity men loathes. 



Alas now is lechery called love indeed 
And murder named manhood in every need 



Extortion is called law — 

Bawds be the destroyers of many young women 
"Mayors on sin doeth no correction 
W'hile gentle men beareth truth adown 
Avoutry is suffered in every town." 



Devotion is gone many days sin 
Courtiers go gay and take little wages 
"And many with harlots at the taverns haunts 
They be yeomen of the wreath that should be shackled 
in gyves." 



God punisheth full sore with great sickness 
As pox, pestilence, purple, and axes 
Yet was there never so great poverty 
Ther be som sermons made by noble doctors 
But truly the fiend doth stop men's ears." 

Here we see an instance of English discrimination. Some 
doctors' are noble and worthy. What he adds is an excuse for 
those who do not preach : 

"All truth is best not said 
-And our preachers nowadays he half-afraid." 

Freewill refers to localities of doubtful repute:^' 

"If I might make three good voyages to Shooter's Hill 
And have wind and weather at niv will 



51 

Then would I never travel the sea more ! 

But it is hard to keep the ship from the shore 

And if it hap to rise a storm 

Then thrown in a raft and so about borne 

On rocks or brachs to run 

Else to shake aground at T.vburn 

That were a murderous case. 

For that rock of Tyburn is so perilous a place 

Young gallants dare not venture into Kent 

But when their money is gone and spent 

With their long boots they row in the bay 

And any man-of-war lie by the way 

They must take a boat and throw the helm ale 

And full hard it is to escape that great jeopardy 

For at Saint Thomas of Watering and they strike a sail 

Then they must ride in the haven of hemp without fail. 

And were not these two per parlous places indeed. 

There is many a merchant thither would speed. 

But yet we have a sure channel at Westminster 

A thousand ships of thieves therein may ride sure; 

For if they may anchor-hold and great spending 

They may live merry as any king." 

We come next to "Magnificence" a play written by John 
Skelton, it i.s thought, in 1516. Magnificence the prince stands 
for Henry \' III ; the vices represent the evil qualities of his great 
minister, Wolsey. The forces for good probably represent the 
party of the Duke of Norfolk who was opposed to the ex- 
travagent policy of the upstart, Wolsey. The satire in the play 
has been thoroughly discussed by Dr. Robert Lee Ramsay in the 
introduction to the Early English Text Society's edition of the 
play ; hence I shall confine myself in giving instances which may 
be construed as satire. Some of these are the familiar attack 
on the times as ■}^ 

"But men nowe a dayes so unhappely be uryd 
That nothynge than welth may be worse enduryd" 

"Yet lyberte hath ben lockyd up and kept in the mew" 
"Yet measure hath ben so longe from us absent 
That all men laugh at lyberte to scorne ; 
Welth and wyt, I say, be so threde-bare worne 
Tha all is without measure, and fer beyond the mone." 

Fancy refers to Louis XII of France as having been a gen- 
erous prince : 



=;2 



"Largesse is he that all prynces doth avaunce 

"I reporte me herein to King Lewes of Fraunce, 



Syth he dyed largesse was lytill used." "* 

He shows the hostility existing between England and France 
in his account of his experiences with the coast officers :^° 

"By God at the see syde 
Had I not opened my purse wyde 
1 trowe, by our lady, I had been slayne 
Or elles I had lost mvne eares twavne 



there is such a wache 

That no man can scape but they hym cache 
They bare me in hande that I was a spe : 
And another bade put out myne eye 
Another wolde myne eye were blerde 
Another bade shave halfe my berde 
And boys to the pylery gan me plucke 
And wolde have made me Freer Tucke 
To preche out of the pylery hole." 

Counterfeit Countenance probably a satire on Wolsey boasts 
of his sway :-^ 

"A knave wyll counterfet nowe a knyght 
A lurdayne lyke a lord to fight 
A mynstrell lyke a man of myght 
A tappyster lyke a lady bryght 



Thus at the laste I brynge hym ryght 
To Tyburn where tliey hang on hyght 



Counterfet maters in the law of the lande, 
Wyth golde and grotes they grese my hande 
In stede of ryght that wronge may stande." 

Of wives, he says :^^ 

"To counterfet she wyll assay 
All the newe gyse freshe and gaye 
And be as praty as she may 
And jet it joly as a jay." 

He speaks too, of "counterfet prechynge and byleve the con- 
trary", and adds some proverbs: 



53 

"Ryches rideth out, at home is poverty."* 



A knokylbonyarde wyll counterfet a clarkc 

He wolde trotte gentylly but he is too starke 

At his cloked counterfetynge dogges dothe barke'' 

This may refer to Cardinal Wolsey, who was looked upon 
with jealousy by the lords. He continues:^* 

''To counterfet this freers have learned me 
This nonnes now and then, and it m3-ght be 
Wolde take in the way of counterfet charyte 
The grace of God under benedicite 
To counterfet theyr counsell they gave me a fee 
Chanons can not counterfet but upon thre 
Monkys may not for drede that men sholde them se.' 

Another of the vices, Cloked Collusion, is dressed as a 
priest in cope and vestment. From this we may infer that he was 
meant to represent Wolsey. His remarks p. 20, i. 620, "Hath 
Magnificence any treasure?" is significant. His characteriza- 
tion of himself is said to fit Wolsey:-^ 

"Two faces in a hode covertly I bere 
Water in the one hande and fyre in the other" 



By Cloked Collusion, I say, and none other 
Cumberance and trouble in England fyrst I began 
From that lorde to that lorde I rode and I ran 
And flatered them with fables fayre before theyr face 
"And tolde all the myschyef I coude be hynde theyr backe." 

Courtly Abusion dressed in the latest fashion — the "new 
foune jet out of France" — may be a satire upon Wolsey's fond- 
ness for dress and show. He comments on the tendency to follow 
fashion :'® 

"A carlys sonne 

Brought vp of nought, 

Wyth me wyll wonne, 

Whylyst he hath ought 

He wyll have wrought 

His gowne so wyde 

That he may hyde 

"His dame and his syre 
Within his slyve 



54 

Spende all his hyre 
That men hym gyve; 
Wherfore I preue 
A Tyborne checke 
Shall breke his necke." 

Folly boasts that he makes fools of idle men and others. He 
must be speaking of Wolsey when he refers to a certain upstart 
who has become very powerful. These are his words :-^ 

"And those be they that come up of nought 
As .some be not ferre and yf it were well sought 
Such dawys, what soever they be, 
That be set in auctorite 
Anone he waxyth so hy and prowde 
He frownyth fyersly, brymly browde 
The knawe wolde make it koy and he cowde ; 
All that he dothe muste be alowde ; 
And, 'This is not well done, Syr.; take hede.' " 

He alludes to men who have been bearing tales to the 
sovereign, but their identity is unknown r^ 

"Ther be two lyther, rude and ranke, 
Smykyn Tytyuell and Pers Pykthanke ; 
These lythers I lerne them for to lere. 
What he sayth and she sayth to lay good ere, 
And tell to his sufferayne euery whyt ; 
And then he is moche made of for his wyt ; 
And be the mater yll more or lesse 
He wyll make it mykyll worse than it is : 

Crafty Conveyance satirizes the times :-^ 

"It is a wonder to se the worlde aboute 
To se what Foly is in vsed in euery place ; 

By the cjuality of Crafty Conveyance "many one is brought 
up of nought," for instance, Wolsey. The "full ungracious sorte" 
around Magnificence may refer to Wolsey's party. 

As has been suggested by Dr. Ramsey, the boastful speech 
of Magnificence when at the height of his power is a satire on 
Henry VHI's youthful extravagance and may also contain a 
trace of literary satire. Magnificence says of Courtly Abusion's 
language :^° 



55 



'•* * * with Pleasure I am supprysyd 
Of your langage, it is so well devysed; 
Pullyshyd and fresshe is your ornacy. 



He is not lyuynge your maners can amend 

Mary, your speche is as pleasant as though it were pend." 

Cloked Collusion comments on the recklessness of the times :^^ 

"For I here but fewe men that gyue ony prayse 
Unto Measure, I say, nowe a days" 



"They catche that catche may, kepe and hold fast 
Out pf all measure themselfe to enryche ; 
No force what thoughe his neyghbour dye in a dyche, 
With pollynge and pluckynge out of all measure." 

He advises Magnificence how to distribute his money :^^ 

"Better to make iii ryche than for to make many 
Gyve them more than ynoughe and let them not lacke 
And as for all others let them trusse and packe 
Pluck from an hundred and gyve it to thre 
Let neyther patent scape them nor fee." 

Lyberte is disgusted with the stinginess of nobles. He says :^^ 

"But nowe adayes as huksters they hucke and they stycke, 
And pynche at the payment of a poddynge prycke ; 
A laudable Largesse I tell you, for a lorde, 
To prate for the patchynge of a pot sharde'. 
Spare for the spence of a noble that his honour myght saue, 
And spende c. s for the pleasure of a knaue." 

On the other hand, he says too much liberty results in 
ruin :^* 

"And some in the worlde, theyr brayne is so ydyll 
That they set theyr chyldren to rynne on the brydyll, 
In youth to be wanton, and let them have theyr wyll 
And they never thryue in theyr age, it shall not gretly skyll 
Some fall to Foly, them selfe for to spyll 
And some fall prechynge at the Ton re Hyll ; 



nonnes wyll leve theyr holynes and ryn after me; 
Freers, with Foly I make them so fayre 
"They cast up theyr obeydyence to cache me agayne ; 
At Lyberte to wander and walke ouer all. 
That lustely they lepe somtyme theyr cloyster wall." 



56 

So much for Magnificence. The next play to be considered, 
"Nature" was written between i486 and 1500. It satirizes the 
conventional sins, pride and avarice. Pride struts about as a 
gallant reminding one of the fops of a later day, for instance, 
Lord Foppington in Van Brugh's play, "The Relapse". He 
says of his own appearance :^^ 

"I love yt well to haue syde here 
Halfe a wote byneth myne ere 
For ever more I stande in fere 
That myne nek shold take cold 
I knyt yt vp all the nyght 
And the day tyme kemb yt down right 
And then yt cryspeth and shyneth as bryght 
As any pyrled gold. 

"My doublet ys onlaced byfore 
A stomacher of satin and no more 
Rayn it, snow yt never so sore 
Me thynketh I am to bote 
Than have I suche a short gown 
Wji;h wyde sieves that hang a down 
They wold make some lad in thys town 
A doublet and a cote. 

Later he tells man that he should get some new clothes :^* 

"For now there is a new guyse 
It ys nowe ii. days a gon 
Syth that men beggan thys fassyon 
And every knave had yt anon, 

He confides in Worldy Affection his future plans concerning 
Man :^' 

"Syr our mayster shall have a gown 
That all the galandys in thys town 

Shall on the fassyon wonder 
It shall not be sowed but wyth a lace 
bytwyxt every some a space 

of two handfull assonder 

'Than a doublet of the new make 
Close byfore and open on the bak 

No sieve vpon hys arme 
vnder that a shyrte as soft as sylk 
and as whyte as any mylk 

to kepe the carcas warm. 



57 

"Than shall hys hosen be stryped 
Wyth corselettys of fyne veluet slyped 

Down to the hard kne 
And fro the kne downward 
His hosen shalbe freshely gard 

Wyth colours ii or thre 

"And whan he is in suche aray 
There goth a rutter men wyll say 

a rutter huf a galand 
ye shall se these foles on hym gase 
and muse as yt were on a mase 

\ew brought into the land." 

Envy says of Wrath's ability to corrupt a jury:^* 

"Syr yt happyned in Westmynster Hall 
Even before the Juges all 
Hys handys were bound fast 
And never upon hym that God ever made 
Dager, sword nor knyfe he had 
And yet at the last 
He drave XH men into a corner 
And an houre after durst they not appere." 

He adds a touch of the conventional satire on woman :'® 

"Now he that wold warre or stryfe 
I pray god send hym a shrewd wyfe." 

Sensuality ascribes avarice to priests and lawyers :*" 

"He dwelled wyth a prest as I herd say 
For he loveth well men of the chyrche and they hym also 
And lawyars eke whan they may tend therto, 
Wyll follow hys counsell." 

In the controversial drama, "Lusty Juventus". which dates 
from the period 1547- 1553, the satire is chiefly anti-papal. 
Knowledge on the side of the Reformation informs Lusty Ju- 
ventus that he has not been instructed right in God's laws by the 
elders :*^ 

"Because they themselves were wrapped in ignorance 
Being deceived by false preachers." 



58 

The devil and Hypocrisy are represented as supporters of the 
CathoHc faith. The former laments his loss of power :*- 

"The old people would still believe in my laws 
But the younger sort lead them a contrary way, 
They will not believe they plainly say 
In old traditions and made by men 
But they will live as the scripture teacheth them 

The latter tells how he has deceived the people :*^ 

"Holy cardinals, holy popes, holy vestments, 
holy copes, holy hermits, holy friars, holy priests, 
holy bishops, holy monks, holy abbots, holy pardons, 
holy beads, holy saints, holy images, etc. 
with holy, holy, holy blood 
holy stocks, holy stones 
yea and holy, holy wood 
holy clouts, holy bones, 
holy skins, holy bulls, 
holy rochets, and holy cowls 
holy crouches and holy staves 
holy hoods, holy caps 
holy mitres, holy hats 
All good holy holy knaves, 
holy days, holy fastings 
holy visions and sights 
holy wax, holy lead 
holy water, holy bread 

The devil and Hypocrisy both lament the spread of the new 
religious teaching. The devil complains :** 

"God's word is so greatly sprung up in youth 
That he little regardeth my laws or me 
He telleth his parents that is very truth 
That they of long lime deceived have be." 

and Hypocrisy adds in the same strain :*^ 

"The world was never merry 
Since children were so bold 
Now every boy will be a teacher 
The father a fool, and the child a preacher," 

Good counsel also has a grievance against the times:*" 

"O where may a man find now one faithful congregation 
"That is not infected with dissension or discord 



59 

Who useth not now covetousness and deceit 
Who geveth unto the poor that which is due." 



The time were too long now to recite 

What whoredom, uncleannes and tilthy communication 

Is dispersed with youth in every congregation 

To speak of pride, envy, and abhominable oaths 

They are the common practices of youth 

To avaunce your flesh, you cut and jag your clothes" 

In "Youth" dating from 1546 (?) we have a didactic mor- 
ality aimed at the particular sins of youth ; Riot typifying one of 
these sins says when questioned about his experiences in New- 
gate that he has never really been there very long.**' 

"For I have learned a policy 
That will loose me lyghtly 
And soon let me go. 

Once, he continues i*** 

"The Mayor of London sent for me 
Forth of Newgate for to come 
For to preach at Tyburn." 

The rope broke, however, and he escaped punishment. 

We now pass to a bitter attack upon the mummery of the 
Roman Catholic in John Bale's "Kyng Johan". Ynglond com- 
plains against the clergy :'° 

"Alas, yowr clargy hath done very sore amys 
In mysusyng me ageynst all ryght and justyce." 
Suche lubbers as hath dysgysed heads in their hoodes 
Whych in idelnes do lyve by other menns goodes,— 
Monkes, chanons and nones in dyvers coloure and shappe 
Both whyght, blacke and pyed. God send their increase ill happe 

"I told you before the faulte was in the clergye 



For they take from me my cattel, howse and land 
My wods and pastures with other commodyteys : 

The Pope is referred to as "the wyld bore of Rome," and 
his followers are called "pigges" fed with vile "ceremonyes". 
They are further described :^^ 

"And unto the lawys of synfull men they leane 
Lyke as the vyle swyne the most vyle metes dessyer." 



6o 



Sedition who appears later in the play as Stephen Langton 
says that he was born under the' Pope in Rome. He adds :^^ 

"In every relygyon and munkysh secte I rayne, 
Havyng you princes in scorne, hate and disdayne. 



Sumtyme I can be a monke in a long syd cowle 
Sumtyme I can be a none and loke like an owle ; 
Sumtyme a chanon in a syrples fayer and whyght; 
A chapter howse monke sumtyme I apere in ryght 
I am ower Syr John sumtyme, with a new shaven crowne 
Sumtyme the person and swepe the stretes with a syd gowne 
Sumtyme the bysshop with a myter and a cope ; 
Agraye fryer sumtyme with cutt shoes and a rope ; 
Sumtyme I can playe the whyght monke, sumtyme the fryer, 
The purgatory prist, and every man's wyflfe desyer 

sumtyme lam a cardynall." ^ 

sumtyme a pope." ^ 

There is a satirical reference to the supervision of abbeys:" 

"In abbeyes they have so many suttyl spyes 
For ones in the yere they have secret vysytacyons 
And yf ony prynce reforme ther ungodly facyons, 
Than ii of the monkes must forthe to Rome by-and-by 
With secret letters to avenge ther injury." 
and one on lawyers when Sedition claims them as his friends. 

King John, we expect to be violent in his denunciation of the 
clergy. He says:^^ 

"Yt was never well syns the clargy wrought by practyce 
And left the Scripture for mens ymagynacyons 
Dyvydyng themselvys in so many congrygacyons 
Of monkes, chanons and fryers, of dyvers colors and facyons 



With your Latyne howrs, sermonyes, and popetly playes." 
Rekyn fyrst your tythis, yowr devocyons and yowr oflferynges 
Mortuaryes, pardons, bequests and other thynges 
Besydes that ye cache for halowed belles and purgatorye 
For juelles, for relyckes, confessyon and cowrts of baudrye 
For legacyes, trentalls, with scalacely messys 
You prists are the cawse that chronycles doth defame 
So many prynces and men of notable fame." °* 

Dissimulation is strongly opposed to the methods of ap- 
pointing church officials :^^ 



6i 

"Thougli we playe the kiiavys. We must sliewe good pretence." 



"To win the peple I appoynt eyche man his place ; 
Sum to synge Latyn, and sum to ducke at grace 
Sum to go mummyng, and sum to beare the crosse 
Sum to stowpe downeward as ther heades wore stopt with mosse, 
Sum to rede the epystle and gospell at hygh masse 
Sum syng at the lectorne with long eares lyke an asse. 
The pawment of the chyrche the aunchent faders tredes 
Sumtyme with a portas, sumtyme with a payre of bedes. 

Speaking of the power of the Pope, he says :^* 

He shall make prelates, both byshopp and cardynall 
Doctours and prebendes with furdewhodes and syde gownes 
"He wyll also create the orders monastycall 
Monkes, chanons, and fryers with graye coates and shaven crown«6 
And buyld them places to corrupt cyties and townes : 
The dead sayntes shall shewe both vysyons and myracles 
With ymages and rellyckes he shall worke sterracles 



He wyll make mattens, houres, masse and evensonge 
To drown the Scriptures for doubte of heresye 
Latyne devocyons with the holy rosarye. 
"The Popys power shall be above the powers all, 
And eare confessyon a matere necessary^' 



The gospell prechyng wyll be an heresy." 

The Pope is made to say in person :*'*' 

"I will all-so reyse up the fower begging orders 
That they may preche lyes in all the christen borders.' 

Cyvyle Order tells Clargy:"^ 

"For yf they decay, ower welth ys not alyve" 



I never knew lawer which had ony crafty lernyng 
That ever escapte you withowt a plentyous levyng" 

The king remonstrates against their power :'- 

"Our prists are rysyn throwgh lyberte of kyngs 
by ryches to pryde and other unlawfull doynges. 



See ye not how lyghte the lawyers sett the poure" 



62 

Commonalty, too, accuses the clergy in his answer to the 
king's question where his money has gone.''^ 

"By pristes, channons, and monkes which do but fyll ther bely 
With my swett and labour for ther popysh purgatory." 

Ynglond warns King John : 

"But, yf ye permytt contynuaunce of ypocresye 
In monkes, and pristes, and mynysters of the clergyp 
Your realme shall never be without much traytery." 

and to Pandulph she says :*'* 

"I smarte all-redy throw yowr most suttell practyse 
And am clene ondone by yowr false merchandyce. 
Yowr pardons, yowr bulles, yowr purgatory-pykepurse 
Yowr Lent — fasten, yoowr schryftes, that I pray God 
geve yow his cursse ! 

After John consents to give up the crown, Sedition gives 
vent to his joy i*'^ 

"Now may we realmes confounde 
Oure Holye Father maye now lyve at hys pleasure 
And have habundance of wenches, wynes and treasure. 



Now shalle we rufifle it in velvetts, gold, and sylke 

With shaven crownes, syde gownes, and rochettes whyte as mylke." 

Treason confesses:*'^ 

"I have so convayed that neyther priest nor lawer 
wyll obeye Gods wurde nor yet the gospell faver." 

and calls paganistic the various ceremonies of the church : 

"All your ceremonyes. your copes and sensers doubtlesse 
Your fyers, your waters, your oyles, your aulters, your ashes 
Your candlestyckes, your cruettes, your salte with such lyke washes 



Of the paganes ye have your gylded ymages al 



With crowchynges, with kyssynges and settynge up of lyghts 
Bearynge them in processyon and fastynges upon their nyghtes 
Soom for tothe-ake, some for the pestylence and poxe ; 
with ymages of waxe to brynge moneye to the boxe." 



63 

To Yrjglond's question, "What have they of Christ in the 
church ?" Treason replies f 

"Mary, nothynge at all, l)ut the cpystle and the gospel! 
And that is in Latyne that no man shoulde it know." 

King John's final opinion of the power of the clergy and 
their vindictiveness is given in the following line:^'* 

"Ther is no maylce to the malyce of the clergye." 

Sedition remains hopeful of the Pope's power:®" 

"The popes ceremonyes shall drowne the gospel styll 
Some of the byshoppes at your injunctyons slepe. 
Some laugh and go bye, and some playe boo-peep 
Some of them do noug-ht but searche for heretykes, 
Whyls their priestes abroade do playe the scysmatykes. 
Tell me in London how manye their othes discharge 
Of the curates there : vet it is much wurse at large. 



Get they false wytnesses they force not of whens they be. 
Be they of Newgate, or be they of Marshallsee. 

the prelates do not preche. 

But persecute those that the holy Scriptures teache. 

This play is the most outspoken of all the controversial 
dramas. In the selection of details and in the enormities with 
which the clergy is charged, it is surpassed only by the same 
author's "Three Lawes". 

In this play Infidelitas who has as accomplices. Sodomismus 
dressed as a monk and Idololatria as a necromancer, begins by 
characterizing the latter. The Christmas and Easter Festivals 
according to him smack of Idolatry. Sodomismus agrees with 
this and adds to the characterization of Idololatria:^" 

"Mennys fortvmes she can tell 
She can by sayenge Ave Marye 

"And by other charmcs of sorcerye, 
Ease men of toth ake by and by. 
Yea and fatche the deuyll from hell." 

Idololatria is made to relate her numerous accomplish- 
ments :^^ 

"With holye oyle and watter 
i can so clovne and clatter 



64 

That I can at the latter 
Many suttj'ltees contryve 



I never mysse but paulter" 
Our blessed ladyes psaulter 
Before saynt Sauers aulter 
With my bedes ones a daye 
And thys is my common cast 
To heare masse first or last 
And the holy frydaye fast 
In good tyme mowt I it saye 

"With blessynges of Saynt Germayne 
I wyll me so determyne 
That neyther foxe nor vermyne 
Shall do my chickens harme 
For your gese seke saynt Legearde 
And for your duckes saynt Lenarde 
For horse take Mosyes yearde 
Thre is no better charme. 

"Take me a napkyn folte 
Wyth the byas of a bolte 
For the healynge of a colte 
No better thyng can be 



"For the cough take Judas eare, 
With the parynge of a peare 
And drynke them without feare 
If ye wyll have remedy 
Three syppes are for the hyckock, etc. 



"If ye cannot slepe but slumber 
Geve otes unto saynt Uncumber 
And beanes in a serten number 
Unto saynt Blase and saynt Blythe 
Geve onyons to saynt Cyryake 
If ve wvll shunne the head ake." 



Sodomismus boasts :" 



'And now the popysh hypocrytes 
Embrace me every where 
I am now become all spyrytuall 
For the clergye at Rome and over all 
For want of wyves to me doth fall, 
To God thev have no feare." 



65 

"If monkysh sectes renue'* 

And popysh prestes contynue, 

Whych are of my retynue, 

To lyve I shall be sure, 
"Cleane marryage they forbyd, 

Yet can not their wayes be hyd 

Men knowe what hath betyd, 

Whan they have been in parell 

Oft have they buryed quycke, 

Such as were never sycke 

Full many a propre trycke 

They to helpe their quarrel! 

"In Rome to me they fall 
Both Byshopp and Cardynall 
Monke, fryre, prest and all 
More ranke they are than antes 
Example in Pope Julye 
Whych sought to have in hys furye 
Two laddes, and to use them beastlye 
From the Cardynall of Nantes." 

Infidelitas sends Idolatry and Sodomy forth to pervert man- 
kind with rings, brooches, beads, and the hke. Here are the 

instructions -J^ 

"Take thu part of them here 
Beades, rynges, and other geare 
And shortlye the bestere 
To deceyve man properlye 

"Take thys same staffe and scryppe 
With a God here of a chyppe 
And good beldame forewarde hyppe 
To set fourth pylgrymage 
Set thu fourth sacramentals 
Say dyrge and synge for trentals 
Stodye the popes Decretals 
Ajid mixt them with briggerage ^ 

"Here is a stoole for the 
A ghostlye father to be 
To heare Benedicite 
"A boxe of creame and oyle 
Here is a purse of rellyckes 
Ragges, rotten bones and styckes 
• •-' A taper with other tryckes." 



66 

Infidelitas, burlesque prayer is a terrible satire on the pope i^" 

"Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui ad imaginem et siinilitudinem 
nostram formasti laicos, da quaesumus lit sicut eorum sudoribus vivimus, 
ita eorum uxoribus, filiabs. et domicellis perpeto frui mereamur. Per 
dominum nostrum Papam. 

He follows the prayer with general satire on the times :^^ 

"Now underneth her wynges 
Idolatry hath kynges. 
With their nobylyte 
, Both dukes, lordes, knyghtes and earles 

Fayre ladyes with their pearles 
And the whole commenalte 

"Within the bowne^ of Sodomye 
Doth dwell the spirytuall clergye, 
Pope, cardinal! and pryst. 
Nonne, chanon, monke and fryre, 
With so many els as do desyre 
To reigne undre Antichrist 

"Detestynge matrymonye 
They lyve abhomynablye 
And burn in carnall lust 
Shall I tell ye farther newes? 
At Rome for prelates are stewes 
Of both kyndes, Thys is just. 

Naturae Lex deplores the iniquities of the day :'^' 

"I abhorre to tell the abusyons bestyall 
That they dayly use, whych boast their chastyte 
'Some at the aulter to incontynency fall. 
In confessyon some full beastly occupyed be 
Amonge the close nonnes reyneth thys enormyte 
Soch chyldren slee they, as they chaunce for to have, 
And in their prevyes, prouyde them of their grave. 

"Ye Christen rulers, se you for thys a waye. 
Be not illuded by false hypocresye. 
By the stroke of God, the worlde wyll els decaye. 
Permyt prestes rather, God's lawful! remedye 
Than they shuld incurre, most bestyall Sodomye 
Regarde not the pope, not yet hys whorysli kyngedom 
For he is the master of Gomor and Sodome." 



67 

Infidelitas sees the influence of the spirit of the Reforma- 
tion and fears the passing away of unheard of iniquities. After 
dwelHng upon the vices of priests, monks, and bishops, he dis- 
cusses the new reHgious spirit :'^ 

"Now are the knaves bolde 
With Scriptures to holde 
And teache them every where 
The carter, the sowter, 
The bodger, the clowter 
That all wyll awaye I fere 

"As us so they pulle 
Our lyvynges are dulle 
We are now lyke to fall 
If we do not fyght 
For the churches ryght 
By the messe we shall lose all. 

InfideHty next tries to destroy Moses' law. His two ac- 
complices are Avaritia dressed as a jurisconsultus and Ambitio 
as a prelate. He tells what they stand for:*° 

"Somtyme for lucre, somtyme for the hygher place 
Yet for advantage, in thys we all agre. 
To blynde the rulers, and deceyve the commynalte." 

Avaritia shows his character in a long speech from which I 
take the following excerpt.^^ 

"To labour with a spade 
Our colour wolde it fade 
We may not with that trade 
We love so moch our ease 
We must lyve by their sweate 
And have good drynke and meate 
Whan they have not to eate 
The substaunce of a pease 

"Our lowsye latyne howres 
In borowes and in bowres 
The poore people devowres 
And treade them undre fete. 

Ambitio as his name suggests gapes for "empyre and wor- 
shypp." He says :^- 



"I loke up aloft 
And loue to lye soft 
Not carynge for my flocke 



Hygh thynges I attempt 
"And wyll me exempt 
From prynces iurysdyccyon." 

He tells how he deceives the people :*^ 

"Wyth fylthy gloses and dyrty exposycyons, 
Of God's lawe wyll I hyde the pure dysposycyons 
The keye of knowledge, I wyll also take awaye 
By wrastynge the text to the scriptures sore decaye 



"We must poyson them, with wyll workes and good intentes 
Where as God doth saye, no straunge goddes thu shalt have 
With sayntes worshyppynge, that clause we wyll deprave 
And though he commaunde, to make no carved ymage 
For a good intent yet wyll we have pylgrymage 

"No Sabboth wyl we, with Gods worde sanctyfye 
But with lyppe labour and ydle ceremonye 
To father and mother, we maye owe non obedyence 
Our relygyon is of so great excellence 
Though we do not slee, yet maye we heretykes burne 
If they wyll not sone from holye scripture turne 
What though it be sayd, thu shalt do no fornycacyon 
Yet wyll we mayntene, moch greatter abhomynacyon 
Though theft be forbyd, yet wyll we contynuallye 
Robbe the poore people, through prayer and purgatorye 
God hath inhybyted to geve false testymonye 
Yet we wyll condempe, the Gospell for heresye. 

"We shuld not covet our neybers horse nor wyfe 
Hys servaunt nor beast, yet are we therein most ryfe 
Of men make we swyne by the draffe of our tradycyons, 

"And cause them nothinge to regard but superstycyons 

In his turn the avaricious Juris consultus says:^* 

"Both howse and medowe 
From the poor wydowe 
I spare not for to take 
Ryght heyres I rob 
And as bare as Job 
The fatherles I make 
For sylver and golde 



69 



With falsehed I holde 

Supportynge every evyl 

I have it in awe 

for to choke the lawe 

And brynge all to the devyl." 



"With superstycyons the Jewes ceremonyall lawes** 
I wyll so handle they shall not be" worth two strawes 
The laws Judycyall through cawtels and delayes 
I wyll also drowne to all ryghteouse mennys decayes, 
To set thys forwarde, we must have sophystrye 
Phylosophye and Logick, as Scyence necessarye 
The byshoppes must holde, their prestes in ignoraunce 
with longe latyne houres, least knowledge to them chaunce 
Lete them have longe mattens, long evensonges, and longe masses 
And that wyll make them, as dull as ever were asses 
That they shall never be able to prophecye 
Or yet to preach the truth to our great injurye 

"Lete the cloysterers be brought up ever in sylence 
Without the scriptures in payne of dysobedyence 
In the lave people, praye never but in latyne 

"Lete them have their crede and servyce all in latyne 
That a latyne beleve maye make a latyne sowle 
Lete them nothynge knowe of Christ nor get of powle 

"If they have Englysh, lete, it be for advauntage 
For pardons, for Dyrges, for offerynges and pylgrymages 
I recken to make them a new Crede in a whyle 
And all in Englysh. their conscyence to begyle. 

The proposed creed is as follows :^® 

"First they shall beleve in our holy father. Pope 
Next in hys decrees, and holy decretals 
Then in holy church, with sencer, crosse and cope 
In the ceremonyes and blessed sacramentals 
In purgatory then, in pardons and in trentals 
In praynge to sayntes and in Saynt Frances whoode 
In our lady of Grace and in the blessed roode 
They shall beleve also in rellyckes and relygyon 
In our ladyes psalter, in fre wyll and good wirkes 
In the ember dayes, and in the popes remyssyon 
In bedes and in belles not used of the turkes 
In the golden masses agaynst soch spretes as lurkes 
With charmes and blessynges, thys crede will bring in moneyc 
In Englysh therfor, we wyll it clarkely conveye 



70 

Ambitio suggests :®^ 

"Then I holde it best that we alwayes condempne 
The Byble readers, least they our actes contempne." 

Infidelitas after comparing Ambitio's mitre to a wolf's 
mouth adds :^^ 

"But thy wolvyshnesse, by thre crownes wyll I hyde 
Makynge the a pope, and a captayne of all pryde 
That whan thou dost slee soche as thy lawes contempne 
Thou mayst say, not I, but the powers ded them condempne 



And thu covetousnesse, lete no bell rynge in steple 
Without a profyght, tush, take moneye every whear 
So nygh clyppe and shave that thu leave never a heare." 

Avaritia boasts :^^ 

"I caused the pope to take but now of late 
Of the Graye fryres, to have canonyzate 
Franciscus de Pola, thre duckates and more 
And as moch besyde, he had not longe afore 
For a Cardynall hatte, of the same holy order 
Thus drawe to us, great goodes from every border 
Pope Clement the 'seventh payed ones for hys papacye 
Thre hondred thousand, good duckates of lawful moneye 

The methods by which he got so much money are explained 
by Avarice :^° 

" by pollage, and by shedynge Christen blood 



Crosers and mytars in Rome are good merchandyce 
And all to lyttle to maynteyne their pompe and vyce, 

Infidehtas says :"^ 

"Now byshopryckes are solde 
and the holy ghost for gold 
The pope doth bye and sell 



The people prestes do famysh 

And their goodes from them ravysh 

Yea, and all the worlde they blynde 

All prynces do they mock 

And robbe the syllye flocke 

Nothynge they leave behynde." 



71 

To destroy Christ's law, Infidelitas sends out Hypocrisis and 
Pseudo-Doctrina. The former indulges in some unquotable re- 
marks, and the latter is not far behind him. If true, they show 
great corruption among high church officials and extreme bold- 
ness on the part of the author in making accusations by name 
instead of skulking behind abstractions. For instance, we have 
Pseudo — doctrina accusing two cardinals by name:®^ 

"In kynge ferdynands tyme in Spayne was a Cardynall 
Petrus menoza, was the very man that I meane, 
Of lemans he had, great nombre besydes the quene. 
One of his bastardes was earle, an other was duke 
Whom also he abused, and thought it no rebuke, 

"Joannes Cremona an other good Cardynall, 
For reformacyon of the clergye spyrituall 
Came over into Englande, to dampne prestes matrymonye 
And the next nyght after was taken doynge bytcherye 

"Doctor Eckius also, whych fearcely came to dyspute 
In lipsia with Luther, myndynge there hym to confute 
For maryage of prestys, thre chyldren had that yeare." 

Infidelitas fears the new sect, He tells Pseudo-doctrina :^' 

"They saye, thu teachest, nothynge but lowsy tradycions 
And lyes for lucre with damnable superstycyons. 
And thus they conclude that the draffe of popysh prystes 
Is good ynough for swyne, by whom they meane the papystes 



And all thys knowledge they have now of the Gospell, 

Pseudo-doctrina plans a campaign with Hypocrisis against 
Christ's law.«* 

"Four knyghtes wyll we byre, whom we shall streyghtly charge 
To kepe hym downe hardes. The first are ambycyouse prelates 
Then covetouse lawers, that God's words spyghtfully hates 
Lordes without lernynge and justyces unryghtfull 
These wyll kepe hym down and rappe hym on the scull 
Then someners and ther scribes, I warande ye shall stere 
With balyves and catch polles to holde hym downe every where" 

Hypocrisis offers to — ®^ 

" rayse up in the unyversytees 

The seven sleepers there, to advance the popes decrees 
As Dorbel and Duns. Durande and Thomas of Aquyne. 



72 

The stage directions as to the "aparellynge of the six vyces 
or frutes of Infydelyte" are interesting:^*^ 

"Lete Idolatry be decked lyke an old wytche, Sodomy lyke 
a monke of all sects, Ambycyon lyke a byshop. Covetousness lyke 
a pharyse or spirituall lawer, false doctryne lyke a popysh doctour 
and hypocrisy lyke a graye fryre, the rest of the partes are easye 
ynough to conjecture." 

John Bale's play "God's Promises" may contain satire in 
the speech of Pater Coelestis, but it is, I think, merely a con- 
ventional complaint r''^ 

"O frowarcl people, given all to superstitions : 
Unnatural children, expert in blasphemies 
Provoketh me to hate by their idolatries 



I abhor your fasts and your solemnity: 

For your traditions my ways ye set apart 

Your works are in vain, I hate them from the heart." 

In "Respublica" dating from 1553, we have another con- 
troversial drama which, in contrast to the two just considered, 
is opposed to Protestantism. It represents England as almost 
ruined by the policy of Edward VI and his ministers. These 
appear in the play under the abstract names of Avarice, Op- 
pression, Insolence, and xA.dulation. They plot to rob Respublica 
and divide lands, plate, lordships, "manour places," castles, towns, 
pastures, and woods among themselves. 

People complains :®* 

"vor we ignoram people 



wer ner so ipolde zo wrong and zo I — torment 

Lord Jhese Christe whan he was I — pounst & I — pilate 

Was ner so i — trounst as we have been of yeares late. 



We passeive ther falleth of corne and cattail 

wull, shepe, woode, leade, tynne, Iron & other metall 

and of all thinges, enoughe vor goode and badde,"* 



and yet the price of every, thing is so dere 

.^s thoughe the grounde dyd brynge forth no such no where." 

After the four vices have fleeced Respublica, they report to 
one another their winnings : Oppression begins :^*'^ 



73 

"I maie were myters fower or fyve 
I have so many haulfe bisshoprikes at the leaste" 



We left the best of them a thredebare bishop.""" 

Avarice says his bags are full of "old aungelots and Ed- 
wardes."^°- He names over his bags. In them he has leases 
encroached and i^esold, interest, usury, bribes, sales of livings, 
clerks' fees, sectourships, church goods, customs filching, forged 
wares, exports wrongful, smuggled goods. He rebukes Oppres- 
sion for not being able to understand Latin : 

"Loe, here a fyne f elowe to have a bishopricke !. 
A verse of Latynne he cannot understande. 
Yet dareth he presume boldely to take in hande 
Into a deanerie or archdeaconrye to choppe 
And to have the livelihood awaie from a bisshop." "" 

He turns to his own policy r^*** 

"I have a good benefyce of an hundred markes 
Yt is smale policie to give suche to greate clerkes — 
They will take no benefice, but thei must have all ! 
A bare clerke canne bee content with a lyvinge smale 
Therefore Sir John iLacke Latten my friend shall have myne 
And of hym maie I ferme yt for eyght powndes or nyne 
The rest maie I reserve to myself for myne owne share 
For wee are good feeders of the poore, so we are," 

Respublica, however, does not agree with him. She laments 
the fate of priests and bishops :^"^ 

"(Whan) they had theire lyvinges, men were both fedde and cladde." 

People complains of the heavy taxes :^°^ 

"Whan chadwith zwette of browes got up a fewe smale crummes 
Att paiing my debtes ich coulde not make my sommes 



Thei have all the woodes throughout the realme destroyed. 
Which might have served long yeares, beeing well emploied 
& than the great cobbes have zo take the rest to hire 
that poore volke cannot gett a sticke to make a fire." '"^ 

We have now considered all the Pre-Tudor Moralities and 
the Early Tudor Moralities. The latter are similar to their 
predecessors in subject-inatter. They still use the old gen- 



74 

eralized lament over the corruption of the times. They deal with 
avarice, uncharitableness, immoral clergy, oppression of the poor, 
bribery in the law courts, inefficiency of public officials, and the 
sway of fashion. They are, however, bolder and more specific 
in their charges of corruption against the clergy. Where in the 
Pre-Tudor Moralities we have the suggestion from Mankind that 
Envy dwells in abbeys ; and the assertion of Lucifer that preachers 
are false, we have in the Early Tudor Moralities, in comparison 
with these two sly, and unemphasized thrusts, whole plays prac- 
tically given up to accusations of the church, for instance, "Kynge 
Johan," "Three Lawes," and "Lusty Inventus. " Even the staid 
play "Everyman" is not free from such satire. The specific 
attack is upon priests. "Mundus et Infans" does not hesitate 
in representing Folly as crowned king of the "freres" and a wel- 
come lodger in abbeys. Practically the same thing happens in 
"Piers Plowman" and in the Scottish play "Ane Satyre of the 
Thrie Estaitis." "Hickscorner emphasizes the bad example set 
by the clergy for the people, complains of the ignorance of 
priests, and the fear of the few honest preachers to speak the 
truth. "Magnificence" attacks the hypocrisy of canons, priests, 
monks, nuns, and friars. The object of satire here, however, 
is principally some arrogant upstart who has wormed his way 
into high ecclesiastical and high public positions. This satire, 
thought to be directed at Wolsey, shows an advance upon the 
preceding morality plays in its combination of personal, reli.<^ious, 
and political satire. A still further advance is shown in the 
controversial plays written by John" Bale. Hating Rome and 
the Pope, he did not hesitate to be specific in his attacks ; he often 
descended to the coarsest kind of invective and abuse. The 
only play which retaliates is the anonymous "Respublica," It does 
not answer the gross charges brought against the Catholics but 
represents the Protestant advisers of Edward VI as having 
brought the country to the \*erge of ruin, when fortunately for 
England Queen Mary ascends the throne. 



CHAPTER V. 



SATIRE IN THE ELIZABETAAN MORALITIES. 

As Elizabethan Moralities we list according to the "Cam- 
bridge History of English Literature" the following plays : 
"Wealth and Health," "Nice Wanton," "Impatient Poverty," 
"Godly Queen Hester," "King Darius," "Albyon Knyght," "The 
Life and Repentance of Mary Magdalene," "The Triall of Trea- 
sure," "Like Wil to Like," "Marriage of Wit and Scyence," 
"Longer thou Livest More Fool Thou Art," "New Custome," 
"Tide tarrieth No Man," "All For Money," "The Conflict of 
Conscience," "The Three Ladies of london," "The Three Lords 
and Three Ladies of London," "Contention between Liberalite 
and Prodigalite," and the Scottish play, "Ane Satyre of the 
Thrie Estaitis." This last play though presented as early as 1540 
is Elizabethan in spirit. 

These twenty plays dating from 1540 to 1600 have for their 
main object the presentation of a moral lesson by means of 
abstract personified characters together with real, individual 
characters. They are merely a late development of the morality 
with a stronger effort in most of them toward indirect didac- 
ticism — satire. This satire like that which preceded it still spends 
its main force on the clergy, reiterating, though not so coarsely, 
the attacks of John Bale on the mummery of the Roman Cath- 
olic Church. 

Besfinning: with "Wealth and Health", we find a touch of 
satire on the Flemish war. The Flemings are looked upon as 
intruders. Their representative is the drunken Hance of whom 
Will says : 

"Such dronken flemminges your company wil mar.'" 

and adds :- 

"by war in flaunders ther is welth store." 

Lawyers and merchants are given their usual characteristics :^ 

"Men of the lawe, and joly rych merchauntes 
These be welthy both of goodes and lands." 
75 



76 



Helth says of the rich :* 



"When a man is lyttle hit and welthy 
And hath in his cheste treasures plentye 
Then wyl he wrangle and do shrewdly 
By his power and might 
With his neighboures he wyll go to lawe 
And a wreke his malyce for valew of strawe 

The next play "Nice Wanton" has the "prodigal motive" at 
its basis. There are two bad children and one "goody-goody." 
The former arouse the ire of Eulalia a neighbor to them. Her 
comment is upon the rearing of children :^ 

'"Lord what folly is in youth 
How unhappy be children now-a-days 
And the more pity to say the truth 
Their parents maintain them in evil ways." 

Further the baily is represented as trying to bribe the judge 
to let the criminal Ismael go :^ 

"The man is come of good kin 
If your lordship would be so good to me 
As for my sake to set him free 
I could have twenty pounds in a purse 
Yea and your lordship a rightt fair horse 
Well worth ten pound." 

The judge, however, proves incorruptible. 
In "Impacyent Poverty" the typical usurer appears in Ha- 
boundance. He explains his methods of making money :^ 

"I sell my ware so dear 
I make XL of XX in halfe a yeare." 

Envy boasts :^ 

"Sometynie beloved T was wyth the spj'ritualitye 
But now coveteouse and symony doeth them so avauce 
That good instytutyon is turned to other ordynaunce." 

To Conscience's remark :^ 

"In holy church svmonv can not abvde." ' 



77 

Envy retorts -y^ 

"He goeth in a clocke, he can not be espyde 
And covetouse so crabtely doth prouyde 
That bonus pastor ovium is blynd and wyl not see !" 

Mysrule comments on the rapid rise of upstart foreigners: 

"Colehasarde came late from beyond the see 
Ragged and torne in a garded cote 
And in his purse never a grote 
And now he goeth lyke a lorde." . 

To Prosperity's question, "Is he a gentleman bore?" Envy 
answers :^^ 

"Tushe take no thought therefore 
For be he gentleman knave or boye 
If he come hether with tryfle or a toye 
He can no money lacke." 

In "Godly Queen Hester" we have a drama which may have 
been written by John Skelton. Like "Magnificence" it satirizes 
some upstart who has become exceedingly powerful. If Skelton 
wrote the play, Cardinal Wolsey must have been the prototype 
of Aman. Of him Pride says :^- 

"I tell you at a worde, Aman that newe lorde 
Hathe bought up all good clothe 

And hath as many gownes as would serve ten townes 
Be ye never so lothe ! 

And any manne in the towne doe bye him a good gowne 
He is very wrothe 
And wyll hym strayte to tell the statute of apparell 



Wherefore by this daye, I dare not goe gaye 
Threde bare is my hoode." 

'For all law est and west & adulation in his chest 
Aman hath locked faste. 

And by his crafti patience hath law into flattering 
So that fyrst and laste 
The client must pay or the lawyer assaye 
The lawe for to clatter 
And whe ye wene he saide right, I assure you 

by this light. 
He doth not els but flatter 

"For yf Aman wynkes, the lawyer shrynkes 
And not dare say yea nor naye 



78 

And yf he speaks the law the other calles him daw 
No more then dare he say, 

So that was law yisterday, is no lawe thys daye 
But flatterynge lasteth alway, ye may me beleve." 

"Dyvines yt do preache, me thynkes they should teache 
And flatteryng reprove." 

Adulation replies :^^ 

'Syr they have lefte prechyng & take them to flatterynge 
moste part of them all 



When they preached, and the truthe teached 

Sume of them caughte a knocke 

And they yt should assisted, I wote not how they were brysted 

'But they did nothing but mocke, 

And that sawe they, and gate them away 

As fast as myght be 

They sold theyr woll and purchased a bull 

Wyth a pluralyte 

And lefte predication, and toke adulation 

They gat the nomynation of every good benefyce 

So better by flatterynge then by preachynge 

"For yf yt be a good fee, Annn sayeth that longeth to me 
Be it benefyce or parke." 

A general criticism of the times follows :^^ 

"Sum tyme where was plenty now ye barnes be empti 
And m;iny men lackes bread. 

And wlier som tyme was meat ther now is none to get 
But all lie gone and dead. 

Begg"rs now do banne and crye out of Aman, 
That ever he was borne. 

They swere by the roode, he eatyth up all their foode 
So that they get no goode, neyther even nor morne 



.And nowe the dores standes shet and no man can we ge; 
To worcke neither to fyghte. 



"Aman Handelles all thynge so 
That every office and fee, what soever it bee 
That may be sene and founde 

By his wit he wyl it featche and or it fal he wul it catche. 
That never commeth to the grounde."^^ 



79 

There are two other references and then we leave this play. 
The first speaks of lying friars and the second, "Carnifex Aman"^® 
may mean Wolsey whose father is said to have been a butcher. 

That incoherent play "King Darius" has little satire. It 
contains, however, a few allusions to the Pope. Equity's prayer, 
for instance, — ^^ 

"And plucke from theyr malycyousness 
Theyr papystry and all theyr coveytousness." 

and Iniquity's reference to his father:^® 

"In Rome he dwelleth, that is his common place 
Where all other bowe before hys face 
All nations to hym do obaye 
And never agayne hym a prowde word dare say 
I warrant you hys landes are very greate, 
He doth poule poore men and lyveth by theyr sweat 
He hath as much landes I warrant you 
As lyeth between thys and Southhampton 
Every house that standeth between thys and that 
Are his, by my trouth I say. I care not what." 

There is also a trace of the conventional satire on woman :^^ 

"Many one in earth there is 
That loveth his wyfe wonderous well ywisse 
Out of theyr wyts also they do run 
And bond slaves for their wives sake are become, 
Peryshed also many have 
And are become Sathans bond slave 
Many also are fallen into syn 
And all through the cause of women." 

The next play to be considered is a political morality. It 
is the only one of the kind extant and is a mere fragment. This 
"Albyon Knyght" pictures the government as torn by factions 
which prevent the passage of good laws and the execution of 
those which already exist. I quote:-" 

"Where Justice is treited with due equitie 
And where no fauour nor mede shuld bee 
And when reason hath tried there everie deale 
That such an acte were good for the comen weale 
If therein anie losse may bee 
To the disaduantage of Principalitie 
Such an acte leseth all hys sute 



With a lytle indoysing of reason astute 

And if it touche the Lordes Sprytuall 

Or be (disadvantage) to the Lordes temporall 

Fare well go bett, this bill may slepe 

As well as through the parlyament crepe 

And if that Marchauntes be moouid with all 

Or any multitude of the comen hall 

This not for us say they than 

This bill is naught but to wype a pan 

And this is all your new equitie." 

Injury, a vice, masking as Manhood says to Albion:-'^ 

"For with hie reason they saie ye can dispute 
And trie out perils with laborous sute 
And eke the treasure for the comen vaile 
As far as wit or reason can assaile 
But when all is done and your statute made 
Then forth ye go in a wise trade 
To brynge it all to good conclusion 
And put it never in execucyon 
Then speke they further in steede of a mocke 

"They have made a statute lyke a woodkoke 
That hath but one eye and the other blynde 
And it wyll turne with every wynde." 

Injury's solioquy contains some satire on the law:'* 

"&than of mee croaketh every man 
How lyke a Lorde this fellow stere can 
Tbe law to defend without a fall 
For all theyr pledying in Westminster hall 
Or say what they wyll and bable there 
Yet mayntenaunce and I wyll kepe the chere 

Division an accompHce of Injury plots to stir up strife:-^ 

"Fyrst I myselfe wyll enterpryse 
That peace shall have no exersyse 
Betweene the comons and Pryncypalitie 
Nor betweene lords spiritual & lords of the temporalite 

He will send Double Devyce "Pryncypalyte and the comons 
to set at dyvysyon ; and as to Old Debate, he says :-* 

"Hym wyll I send to the lordes spirituall 
To cause them to wrangle wt the lords temporall 
The one to principalytie shall surmyse 
That '.be comons hartes do arvse 



Against him when that he doth aske 

In tyme of neede, our money for to taske 

His harte to mooue with such vnkyndness 

Then the same spye shall vse lyke doublenes 

And go the comons and to them tell 

That Principalytie with equitie doth rebell 

More to hys lucre in euerie deale 

Applyeng his affection then to the comen weale 

"And how that he of neglygence 
Doth not apply for theyr defence 
Neither by Sea nor by lande 
Neither by hye wayes. neither by stronde 
But theves and raveners and murders eke 
Dayly true men they pursue and seke 
And that his laws indifferently 
Be not used but maintenance and brybary 
Is suffred alone without reformacion 
That the poore comons is in altercation 
Of this matter and wnte not what to say 
Brynging them in opinion yt they ought not to pay 
To pryncypalytie theyr duety of very desarte 
Except lyke duetie be mynistred on hys parte." 

Old Debate:-^ 

"Shall enfourme the lordes temporall 
That the spyrytuall men wolde rule all." 

In "The Life and Repentance of Mary Magdalene" the sa- 
tire is scattering. It consists of a few trite remarks on immoral 
priests, dress and women. "Infidelitie the Vice boasts :-® 

" with the chief princes now I do dwell : 

The bishops, priests and pbarisees do me so retayne 
That tlie true sense of the lawe they do disdayne." 

After dressing up to tempt Mary, he comments on his per- 
sonal appearance :-^ 

"Lyke obstinate Friers I temper my looke 
Which had one eie on a wench, an another on a boke." 

On women he says :-^ 

"This is a true proverb and no famed fable 

"Few women's words be honest, constant, and stable." 



82 

and — -'' 

"The beddc wherin lieth an\- married wife 
Is never without chidyng. brawling, and strife." 

The advice given to Mary by Pride, Cnpiditie. Infidelitie. and 
the mahcious judge is satirical. Pride says :^" 

"Take yow none but gentlemen with velvet coates : 
It is to be thought that they are not without groates." 

Cupidite adds : 

"In any wise see that your lovers be young and gry 
And suche fellowes as be well alile to pay." 

The malicious judge remarks :'^^ 

"Women's heartes turne oft as doth the wynde, 
And agayne of the law they know not the sense." 

His opinion of the value of hypocrisy- is shown by the follow- 
ing remark :^- 

"Tushe, hyde self in a Pharisees gowne 
Such a one as is bordered with the commaundments 
And then thou must dwell both in citie and in towne 
Being well accepted in all men's judgments." 

The next play "The Triall of Treasure'' is not satirical. 
Just replies sarcastically to the vice. Lust, who has ridiculed 
her somber garments v'^ 

"Mine apparel is not like unto thine 
Disguised and jagged of sundry fashion 
Howbeit it is not gold always that doth shine 
But corrupting copper of small valuation." 

and Lust refers to Smithfield as his favorite locality.^"* 

In "Like Wil to Like" (1568) Nichol Newfangle the Vice 
asserts that he has been under the instruction of Lucifer. From 
him he says :^^ 

"I learn'd to make ruffs like calves chitterlings 
Caps, hats, coats, with all kind of apparels 
And especially breeches as big as good barrels 
Shoes, boots, buskins with many pretty toys." 



^3 

To Lucifer's request that he bring people under the sway of 
fashion, he says :^*^ 

"Tush, Tush, that is already brought to pass 
For a very skipjack is prouder I swear by the mass 
And seeketh to go more gayer and more brave 
Than doth a lorde though himself be a knave." 

Tom the Colher boasts of his ability to cheat :^^ 

"To every bushel cha zold but three peck 
Lo, here be the empty zacks on my neck 
cha beguild the whoresons that of me ha' bought 
But to beguile was their whole thought. 



It is a common trade nowadays this is plain 
To cut one another's throat for lucre and gain. 

Tom Tosspot, another boisterous character, as his name 
implies, says :^^ 

"I am acquainted with many a woman 
That with me will sit in every house and place 
But then their husbands had need fend their face 
For when they come home, they will not be areard 
To shake the goodman and sometimes shave his beard. 
And as for Flemish servants I have such a train 
That will quass and carouse and therein spend their gain 

In a likestrain Ralph Roister says r^" 

"And I may say to you 1 have such a train 
That sometime I pitch a Held on Salisbury plain." 

There are references to places of execution,'*'- such as, 
Tyburn, and Thomas-a-waterings. Newfangle in his description 
of the gallows to Cutpurse and Pickpurse uses figurative lan- 
guage i*^ 

"This piece of land whereto you inheritors are 
Is called the land of the two-legged mare 
In which piece of ground there is a mare indeed 
Which is the quickest mare in England for speed." 

In "Longer thou Livest more Fool thou Art" the generalized 
lament voiced by Exercitation appears :*- 

"Certaine persons I coulde rehearse b\- name 
Have pretended a great perfection 



84 

And why? to avoyde punishment and shame 
Due for their vicious infection: 
As sum have entred into religion 
Wherefore? because they will not pay their det." 

Discipline shakes his head and agrees that the times are 
degenerate :*^ 

"Two thinges destroye youth at this day 
Indulgentia parentum, the fondness of parents 
Which will not correct their nought ways 
But rather embolden them in there entents : 
Idlenesse, alas, Idlenesse is another 
who so passeth through England 
To se the vouth he would wonder 



God preserve London, that noble citie." 

People adds his complaint :** 

"Good Lord how are we now molested ! 
The devil! hath sent one into our covmtrie 
A monstre whom God and man hath detested 
By honest men he setteth not an oynion — " 

Discipline gives some advice which ends in satire on the 
Pope :*^ 

"Companie not with any Heretike. 
An Heretike him holy Doctors do call, 
■ Which erreth in God's most sacred Scripture, 
Which is blinde and seeth not his owne fall. 
But maliciously doth in errour endure. 
The greatest Heresie that ever was 
Hath the pope and his adherents published. 
Yea, the Heresie of Arius it doth passe 
For Christe and his benefits it hath extinguished 
Example by the wicked masse satisfactorie 
Which to Christes death they make equivalent. 
For they call it a sacrifice propiciatorie. 
Which is an Heresie most pestilent. 
Agayne, praier to Sainctes that be dead. 
Which is a poynte of infidelitie." 

In "New Custom" (1573) we have a controversial drama. 
Perverse Doctrine begins :**' 

" tlie world was never in so evil astate 



Do you not see how these naw-fangled prattling elves 
Prink up so pertly of late in every place 
And go about us ancients flatlv to deface." 



85 
Against conceited preachers, he says :*^ 

'For how should they have learning that were born but even now 

As tit sight it were to see a goose shod or a saddled cow 

As to hear the prattling of an}' such Jack Straw 

For when he hath all done I count him but a daw 

As in London not long since, you wot well where 

They sang to a sermon and we chanced to be there 

Up stert the preacher, I think not past twenty years old 

With a sounding voice and audacity bold 

And began to revile at the holy sacraments and transubstantiation. 

What young men to be meddlers in divinity? it is a goodly sight t 

Yet therein now almost is every boy's delight 

No book now in their hands but all scriptures, scriptures 

Either the whole Bible or the New Testament you may be sure. 



They have revoked divers old heresies out of hell 

As against transubstantiation, purgatory, and mass 

And say that by Scripture they cannot be brought to pass." 

They have brought in one, a young upstart lad, as it appears 

I am sure he hath not been in the realme very many yeares 

With a gathered frock, a polled head and a broad hat 

An unshaved beard, a pale face ; and he teaceth that 

All our doings are nought, and hath been many a day 

He disallowed our ceremonies and rites, and teaceth another way 

To serve God, than that which we do use'"* 



It is a pestilent knave, he will have priests no corner caps to wear 
Surplices are superstition ; beads, paxes and such other gear 
Crosses, bells, candles, oil, bran, salt, spittle, and incense. 
With censing and singing, he accounts not worth three half-pence 

And cries out on them all 

Such holy things wherein our religion doth consist 
But he commands the service in Englysh to be read." 

New Custom praises the good old times i*** 

"If neighbours were at variaunce ; they ran not straight to law 
Daysmen took up the matter and cost them not a straw 



Adultery no vice, it is a thing so rife^" 

A stale jest to be with another man's wife! 

Covetousness they call 
Good husbandry when one would fain have all. 



Whoso will be so drunken that he scarcely knoweth his way 
O, he is a good fellow, so now-a-days they say 



86 



Gluttony is hospitality, while they meat and drink spill 
Which would relieve disease whom famine doth kill 



Theft is but policy, perjury but a face." 

Referring to the Catholic Church, he says :^^ 

"Brought they in their monsters, their masses, their lights 
Their torches at noon to darken our sight 
Their popes and ther pardons, their purgatories for souls 
Their smoking of the church and flinging of coals; 

Hypocrisy urges Perverse Doctrine to continue his religious 
pretences :^- 

"Still pretend religion, whatsoever you say 
And that shall get thee good credit alway 
Pleasing the multitude with such kind of gear 
Square caps, long gowns with tippets of silk 
Brave copes in the church, surplices as white as milk 
Beads and such like." 

Perverse Doctrine tells of his difficulties :^'^ 

"For since these new heretics, the devil take them all, 
In all corners began to bark and bawl 
At the Catholic faith and the old religion 



Hypocrisy hath so helped at every need, 

In "Tyde Tarrieth No Man" we are reminded of the "Ship 
of Fools" when Corage the Vice invites all to his barge :^* 

"There are usurers great who with their braynes do beat 
In devising of guyles. False dealers also 
A thousand and mo which know store of wyles 



"Crafty cutpurses, maydens mylchnurses 
Wives of the stampe who love mo then one. 

"Husbands as good as wigges made of wood 
We have there also, with servauntes so sure 
As packthred most pure which men away throw. 

"And some by Corage now and then 
at Tiborne make their will."" 



87 

Greediness tells of the preacher who scored evil citizens and 
Helpe of methods which were worthy of condemnation i^** 

we love best with straungers to deale 



To sell a lease dear, whoever that will 

At the french or dutch church let him set up his bill 

And he shall have chapmen I warrant you good store 

Looke what an English man bids, they will give as much more. 

Furtheraunce uses similar methods :^^ 

"I will worke so on both the sydes. 
That of both parties I will obtayne brybes 

The Courtier next tells how he has been duped :^^ 

"Each man then a porcion would have 
The marchaunt for loue, the Broker for his payne 
And the scrybe for wrytyng, ech man had a gayne." 

At the close of the play, Corage is dragged off for punish- 
ment by Correction. As he is led off, he asks the spectators :^^" 

"Is there no man here that hath a curst wife 
If he will in my stead, he shall end his life." 

In "All for Money" (1578) the satire is as the name of the 
play implies, chiefly on money, Theologie says:*'" 

'"So many would not study me but for money 
And thereby to live and in wealth 
The bishop, the priest, and the doctour of divinitee 
Would give over their studie not regarding their soul's health 
And use some other things, for as it appeareth 
The artificer doth leave his arte and occupyng 
And becomes a minister for monev and easie living'' 



For the wicked riche man and the lover of money 

Regarde but for gayne neither you nor me 

So they have money they care not for us a gnate""' 

"Many marchant man that is ryght simple borne 
With unsociable games encreaseth more and more 
He will not abate his price for helpyng the poore. 

Money boasts :®- 

"The doctor, the draper, the plowman, the carter 
In me have their joy and pleasure 



88 



Money is my name, all over is my fame 
I dwell with every degree. 



The smith and the shoemaker, the minstrell, the daunser 
With me will drink and be mearie 



Yea manie loves me better then God. 

For servants and prentises will privily robbe their masters 

To me they have such a minde." 

Learning without Money scores the learned rich :^^ 

"Of manie learned riche I craud but could get nought, 
But the poore sorte unlearned haue given me to feede ; 
Many that be learned and riches haue with all 
Are more out of frame then some who nothing haue at all 
Their learning makes them think with their riches to be so strong 
That they will oppresse their neighbour be it never so wrong" 

Money without Learning taunts him :''* 

"Who will esteeme thee onlesse thou haue liuing?" 

Learning without Money then discusses the inconsistencies 
of the rich r"^ 

"For it is the nature of the churlish rich man 
To be friend to such as of him standes no neede 
But if his riches fayle farewell friendship than 
He will not then bid him with hime once to feede." 

Money without Learning rejoices that though he has no 
learning to defend his. yet he has in his bags "a friend will 
pleade — in Westminster Hall.""*^ 

Money maintains that he is very influential :* 



.67 



"I have made many a crooked matter straight 
The theefe that was all night robbing and stealing 
If I beare him witness was all night in his bed sleeping 
A man's wife taken in bed with another 
Coulde have no harme when I did excuse her 
When I spoke she was taken to be of good behaviour. 
There was a man killed and twenty witnesses by 
But I said he killed himself with his owne dagger 
And when I had spoken everie one held his peace 
And then the officers the murtherer did release." 



: 89 

Synne comments on the priest Sir Lawrence Livingless :®® 

"I promise you he is very well learned if you wish to oppose him 
But it must not be in Greek, Ebrewe, nor Latin 
A cure he is able sufficiently to discharge 
He can reade very well upon a paire of cardes." 

Sir Lawrence, however, proves unable to tell Synne how 
many epistles Paul write after his conversion. He answers :^^ 

"By the masse he writ to manie 
I would they were all burned 

For had they not bene and the newe Testament in English 
I had not lacked living at this time I wisse 
Before the people knew so much of the Scripture 
Then they did obey us and loved us out of measure 
And nowe we can not go in the streets without a mocke." 

"The Conflict of Conscience" is a satire on the Catholic 
church and its ceremonies, Satan is made to say :'° 

"So hath my boy devised very well 
Many pretty toys to keep men's souls from hell 
Live they never so evil here and wickedly 
As masses, trentals, pardons and scala coeli." 

Avarice and Tyranny tell of their influence with the clergy. 

The former says :'^ 

"Well may the clergy on our side hold 
For they by us no small gain did reap 
But all the temporalty I dare be bold 
To venture in wager of gold a good heap 
At our preferments will mourn, wail, and weep." 

Tyranny replies :'- 

"In the clergy I know no friends we shall want 
Which for hope of gain the truth will recant 
And give themselves wholly to set hypocrisy 
Being egged on by Avarice and defended by Tyranny." 

Hypocrisy tells of the plans made by him and the pope:^^ 

"The Pope and I together have devised 
Firstly to inveigle the people religious 
For greediness of gain who will be soon pressed 
And for fear lest hereafter they should be despised 
Of their own free will maintain Hypocrisy 
So that Avarice alone shall conquer the clergy." 



90 

Caconos the priest is a satire on the ignorance of church offi- 
cials and their consequent inefficiency. He rejoices over the per- 
secution of heretics and the restoration of Catholic ceremonies J* 

■" new agen within awer land installed is the Pope 



Whese legate with authority tharaward awr country goth 



Far to spay awt, gif that he mea, these new-sprang arataics 

Whilk de disturb awr hally kirk laik a sect of saysmatics 

Awr gilden Gods ar brought agen intea awr kirks ilkwhare 

That unte tham awr parishioner ma offer thar gude-will 

For holly mass in ilk place new thea autars de prepare 

Hally water, pax, cross, banner, censer, and candell 

Cream, crismatory, holly bread, the rest omit ay will 

Whilt hally fathers did invent fre awd antiquity 

Be new received inte awr kirks with great solemnity 

Bay these though lemen been apprest, the clargy all but gean 

Far te awr sents theis affer yifts all whilk we sail receive 

Awr hally mass, thaw thea bay dere, thea de it but in vain 

Far thaw ther frends frer Purgatory te help thea dea believe 

Yet of ther hopes, gif need rewhayre. it wawd theam all deceive 

Sea wawd awr pilgrimage, reliques, trentals and pardons 

Whilk for awr geyn wite awr Kirk ar brought in far the nonce. 

Far well a nere what war awr tenths and taythes that gro in tild 

What gif we han of glebed land ene plawark bay the year 

Awr offring dear de vara laytell ar nething te us yield 

Awr beadrool geanes, awr chrisom clethes de laytle mend awr fare 

Gif awt of this we pea far vale, we laytle more can spare. 

Sawlmasses. diriges, moneth mayndes and buryings 

Alsowlnday, kirkings, banasking and weddings 

The sacraments, if we mowt sell, war better than thea alle 

Far gif the Jews gave thratty pence te hang Chraist on a tree 

Gude Christian folk thrayse thratty pence wawd count a price but small 

Sea that te eat him with their teeth delaivered he mawglit be 

New of this thing delaiverance ne man can make but we 

Se that the market in this punt we priests sawd han at will 

And with the money we sowd get awr poodies we sowd fill." 

When Tyranny informs him that he has a commission to 
search his house for seditious books, he exclaims in great sur- 
prise -J^ 

"Whe ay ? wel a near, ay swear bay the sacrament 
Ay had rather han a cup of nale than a Testament." 

and he replies to Hypocrisy's question. How he can discharge 
his office without it by saying: 



91 

"It is the least thing ay car far, bay my charge 
Far se lang as thea han images wharon te luke 
What need thea be distructed awt af a buik?" 

"For in my portace the tongue ay de nat know 
Yet when ay see the great gilded letter 
Ay ken it sea well, as nea man den better 
As far example: on the day of Chraist's nativity 
Ay see a bab in a manger and two beasts standing by 



The service whilk to New Year's day is assignd 

Bay the paicture of the circumcision ay faynd 

The service whilk on Twalfth day mun be done 

Ay seeke bay the mark of the three kings of Cologne 

Bay the devil tenting Chraist ay find whadragesima. 

Bay Chraist on the cross ay serch out gude-fraiday. 

Ayenst Hall-Thursday is pented Christ's Ascension 

Thus in mayn own buke ay is a gude clerk : 

But gif the sents war gone, the cat had eat my mark 

Se the sandry mairacles, whilk ilk sent have done, 

Bay the pictures on the walls sal appear to them soon 

Bay the whilk thes ar learned in every distress 

What sent thei mun prea te for succour, doubtless 

Sea that all lepers to Sylvester must prea 

That he wawd frae tham ther disease take away 

Besides this ignorant type of priests there is another church 
official higher up who is represented as unworthy. The Car- 
dinal thinks of his own comfort first when he says :'"^ 

"I will not lose one meal of my diet 
Though therein did hang an hundred men's fait." 

The "Three Ladies of London" deals with the same satirical 
matter as the preceding plays. By love we have the importance 
of Lucre presented. ^^ 

"Tis Lucre now that rules the roost ; 'tis she is all in all 
'Tis she that holds her head so stout, in fine, 'tis she that works our fall. 



"For lucre men come from Italy, Barbary, Turkey 
From Jewry; nay Pagan himself 
Endangers his body to gape for pelf 

They forsake mother, prince, country, religion, kiff, and kin 
Nay men care not what they forsake so Lady Lucre they win." 

Simplicity says that he has known Fraud before at Ware 
and Gravesend.^^ On Simony he says :^^ 



92 

"And Simony-a-per-se-a- Simony, too, he is a knave for 
the nonce. 
He loves to have twenty livings at once 
And if he let an honest as I am to have one 
He'll let it so dear that he shall be undone 
And he seeks to get persons living into his hand 
And puts in some old dunce that to his payment will stand 
So if the parsonage be worth 40 or 50 £ a year 
He will give one 20 nobles to mumble service once a month there 

Lucre asks Usury f" 

"Why camest thou into England 
Seeing Venice is a city 
Where usury by Lucre may live in great glory? 

and Usury answers : 

"I have often heard your good grandmother tell 
that England was such a place for Lucre 
As was not in Europe and the whole word beside."' 

Simony gives the following account of himself :^^ 

"My birth, nursery, and bringing up hitherto hath been in 
Rome that ancient city 
At a banquet some said Rome's religious wealth 
Came from the princes and by stealth 
But the friars and monks with all the ancient company 
Said that it first came in and is now upholden by me Simony 



"And sirrah when I was at Rome and dwelt in the Friary *- 
They would talk how England yearly sent over a great mass 

of money 
And that this little island was more worth to the Pope 
Than 3 byger realms which had a great deal more scope 
For here were smoke-pence, Peter pence, and Paul-pence to 
be paid 

The merchant as usual, is representd as greedy :^^ 
"Me will tie and forswear myself for a quarter so much as my hat." 

Lucre wants him to smuggle goods into England. He is, 
however, afraid of the consequence. He says :^* 

"I tink some skall knave will put a bill in Parliament 
For dat such a tings shall not be brought here." 



93 

But Lucre insists that he knows tricks by which he can out- 
wit the customs officials :^^ 

" by stealth bring over a great store 

And say it was in the reahn long tyme before 
And do but give the searcher an odd bribe in his hand 
I warrant you he will let you scape roundly with 
such things in and out the land," 

We have another instance of class satire when the lawyer ex- 
claims :*" 

"Tush, sir I can make black white and white black again 
Tut he that will be a lawyer must have a thousand ways to feign 
Why, sir what shall let us to wrest and turn the law as we list 
Seeing we have them printed in the palms of our tist : 

Sincerity after trying to get a benefice without success, re- 
grets having studied divinity :" 

" Divines that preach the word of God sincerely and truly, 



Are in these days little or nothing set by. 

There never was more preaching and less following, the people 

live so amiss 
But what is he that may not on the Sabbath day attend God's 

word to hear 
But he will rather run to bowls, set at the ale-house than 

one hour afford. 
Telling a tale of Robin Hood, sitting at cards, playing at 

skittles or some other vai'n thing." 

He tells Dissimulation :®® 
"Thou art akin to the lawyer, thou wilt do nothing without a fee." 

and continues i'*^ 

"Flatterers now-a-days live gentleman-like 
And with prating get praise." 

There is a reference which shows that rents were high and 
consequently the houses, especially an .foreign districts, were 
overcrowded : The merchant says strangers are content i^" 

"To dwell in a little room and pay much rent 
For you know da Frenchmans and Flemings in dis country be many 
So dat they make shift to dwell ten houses in one very gladly. 



94 

Conscience bewails the hypocisy seen in the inns, breweries, 
tanneries, bakeries, chandler-shops etc."^ Fraud walks about the 
streets in a citizen's gown. Usury lurks at the exchange. Simony 
walks in Paul's and confers on intimate terms with the clergy.**- 

The sequel of this play "The Three Lords and Three Ladies 
of London" contains little satire. Dissimulation appears again 
and tells us how he shifts about in three sundry shapes;"^ some- 
times as a friar, for they can dissemble; sometimes as a woman, 
for they do little else ; and sometimes as a saint and a devil — 
and so is a woman. Sometimes he steals into Leaderhall and 
sometimes into Westminster Hall. His accomplice, Fraud, has 
been entertained by artificers and ill-conscienced lawyers.*** 

Simplicity announces that there '11 be no more fraud; and 
consequently he'll be much missed in the trades. The tailors will 
miss him in cutting out garments, the tanners in making leather, 
the tapsters in filling pots, and the very oyster man in mingling 
their oysters at Billingsgate.**^ 

In great fear of arrest Fraud proposes to Usury and Simony 
that they go to sea to join with the Spaniards :*'*' 

"We may either go with them and live in Spain where we and such 
good fellows are tolerated and used or come slyly again hither." 

Simony says that he is hated in Scotland and the Low 
Countries. He gives the nationality of the different vices to- 
gether with his own. 

"I Simony am a Roman ; Dissimulation, a mongrel, half an Italian, 
half a Dutchman; Fraud is too — half French and half Scotch and thy 
parents were both Jews though thou wert born in London and here. 
Usury thou art cried out against by the preachers. Join with us to 
better thy slate, for in Spain preaching toucheth us not.""*' 

The Spaniard in the play is made to say :^^ 

"What's England to the power of Spain 
.A. molehill to be placed where it pleaseth them." 

In the "Contention between Liberality and Prodigality" there 
is a satire on high prices and poor food at times,*"' on the vanity 
of women^°° and the generalized lament on the times. Liberality 
savs :^^'^ 

"So wonts the world to pamper those that nought deserve 
Where such as merit best, without relief do starve." 



95 

Virtue concludes with :^"- 

*You see but very few that make of virtue any price 
You see all sorts with hungry wills run headlong into vice. 

These EHzabethan Moralities still retain the dull, generalized 
lament so common in their predecessors, such as the common- 
place assertion that children were ill-reared ; good men scarce ; 
and all minkind deaf to advice. But it is not nearly so prominent 
as in the early days. The reader gets the idea — the moral lesson 
— without being told in so many words that "worse was it never" 
or if he is told, he forgets the statement in the specific action 
which follows. "Nice Wanton," for instance, has the grumbling 
neighbor Eulalia complain of the poor training that children 
receive from their parents. This complaint, hofwever, is sub- 
ordinate and auxiliary to the main action : we are likely to for- 
get it in following the main action — the characters Dalila and Is- 
mael through the various steps in their downfall. Again in this 
play of the sixteenth century we have a specific character, a baily 
so eager to accept a bribe that he ventures to approach the judge 
though without success. Contrast this action with the statement 
in the fifteenth century Morality, ''Wisdom": "Wo will have 
law must have monye." This comes from the mouth of an 
abstraction, "Mynde". And yet we cannot say that "Wisdom" 
is entirely general. "Perjury" takes a specific jury that of Hol- 
born whicli seems to have been notorious for injustice and holds 
it up to scorn. Even in the old miracle cycles, for instance, the 
Ludus Coventriae, the high priest is represented as advising the 
l)ribery of the soldiers to prevent their spreading the news of the 
Resurrection. 

The point of difiference Seems to me to lie in the purpose of 
the authors. The authors of Elizabethan moralities were growing 
away from the old didactic purpose. At any rate they did not so 
directly set forth their didacticism. They gave their crude au- 
diences materials ; from which one could draw the moral for him- 
self with perhaps just a suggestion of a moral as a preparation for 
the action. Or if more moralizing was present than I have indi- 
cated, it simply serves to show the tendency of authors to follow 
old forms and old methods rathen than to attempt new ones. 

The Scotch play "Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis" by Sir 
David Lyndsay. thotigh classified with Elizabethan Moralities 



96 

should be considered by itself. It reflects conditions very similar 
to those in England. It is unsparing in its criticism of classes 
and the clergy. The play is started with a bit of woman satire 
when Diligence as prologue requsts silence :^ 

"Let everie man keip weill ane toung 
And everie woman tway." 

The ecclesiastical satire begins with a speech by Wanton- 
ness :^ 

"First, at the Romane Kirk will ye begin, — 
Quwhilk is the lemand lamp of lechery 
Quhair Cardinals and Bischops generally 
To luif Ladies thay think ane pleasant sport 
And out of Rome hes baneist Chastity, 
Quha with our Prelats can get na resort. 

Solace supports his statement :^ 

"For all the Prelats of this nation 
For the maist part 

Thay think na schame to haue ane huir 
And sum hes thrie vnder thair cuir. 

Speir at the Monks of Bamirrinoch, 
Gif lecherie be sin."* 

The prioress is also impilcated ; and even the court of Rome 
is said to be given up to Sensuality, for the latter boasts :^ 

"That few or nane refuses me, at all 
Paipis, patriarks, or Prelats venerabill, 
Common pepill, and Princes temporall 
Ar subiect, all, to me, Dame Sensuall 

Gude Counsall critizes the times :** 

"For I have maid my residence 
With hie Princes of greit puissance 
In England, Italie, and France, 
And monie other land 
Bot out of Scotland — wa ! alace ! 
I haif bene fleimit lang tyme space: 

There is class satire when the character Dissait gives his 
dwelling place as "Amang the merchands" ; when Flatterie pro- 
poses to disguise himself as a clerk "new cum out of France."^ 



97 

He incidentally voices satire on the friars when he discusses the 
possibility of using the dress of a friar :^ 

"Perchance He cum (till) that honour 
To be the Kings confessour 
Pure Freirs are free at any feast, 
And marchellit, ay, amang the best, 
Als, God to them hes lent sic graces, 
That Bischops puts them in thair places, 
Outthrow their Dioceis to preiche : 
Bot ferlie nocht, howbeit thaj' fleich ; 
For, schaw thay all the veritie, 
Thaill want the Bischops charitie, 
And thocht the corne war never sa skant, 
The gudewyfis will not let Freirs want : 
For quhy thay ar thair confessours, 
Thair heauinlie prudent counsalours." 

Flatterie is versed in palmistry, an art which he learned in 
Italy.® He is later much alarmed at the appearance of Veritie in 
the land and advises Spiritualitie against her :^^ 

"Dame Veritie hes lychtit, now of lait 
And in hir hand beirand the Newtestament. 
Be scho ressauit, but doubt wee are bot schent : 
Let hir nocht ludge thairfoir, into this Land. 

The abbott agrees with him :^^ 

"For with the King gif Veritie be knawin, 
Of our greit gloir wee will degradit be. 
And all our secreits to the commons schawin." 

and the parson urges :^- 

" go distroy all thir Lutherians, 

In special], yon ladie Veritie. 

They go, therefore, to Vertitie, and Flattrie acts as spokes- 
man :^^ 

"Quhat buik is that, harlot into thy hand? 
Out ! walloway ! this is the New Testament 
In Englisch toung, and printit in England ! 
Herisie ! herisie ! fire! fire! incontinent. 

Chastity is banished by Prioresses, nuns, spirituality, and 
temporarlity and is chased off by the wives of the carping tailor 

7 



98 

and the cobbler. These two types give some satire on woman. 
The tailor congratulates the priests on their celibacy :^* 

"Now weils yovv Preists, now weils vow all your lifes. 
That ar nocht weddit with sic wickit wyfes." 

To return to Chastity, we find her thrown into the stocks just 
as Pity was in "Hickscorner". Her lamentation is that since the 
Pope has become a king, Ladie Sensualitie" rules the country.^^ 

The entrance of Correction's servant causes the vices to 
think of flight. Flattrie propose hiding in some cloister: Dis- 
sait with the merchants ; Falset among the craftsmen ;^*' and Sen- 
sualite,^^ among the prelates at Rome. 

The interlude of the Pauper contains satire on the law, on 
heriot, on mortuary tax and on the clergy. The pauper says of 
the Edinburgh courts:^* 

"I socht law thair this monie deir day; 
Bot I culd get nane at Sessioun nor Seinze 

Then he relates how he has been stripped of his property by 
the death tax and how with his "ane Inglis grot" he intends to go 
to law. Diligence laughs at his simplicity :" 

"Thou art the daftest fuill that ever I saw 
Trows thou, man, be the law to get remeid 
Of men of Kirk? Na, nocht tell thou be deid." 

and gives him some advice when he asks by what law a priest 
can rob a poor man of his three cows, and by what law a man 
of the church can be immoral and go unpunished.-** 

"Hald thy toung, man ! It seems that thou war mangit 
Speik thou of Preists, but doubt thou will be hangit." 

The pardoner expresses his hatred of the Reformation: 

"I giue to the deuill, with gude intent, 
This vnsell wickit New-testament, 
With them that it translaitit. 
Sen layik men knew the veritie. 
Pardoners get no charitie, 
Without that thay debait it 
Amang the wives, with wunks and wyles. 



"Of all credence now 1 am quyte ;^ 
For ilk man holds me at dispyte, 



99 

That reids the New-testiment. 

Duill fell the braine that her it wrocht ! 

Sa fall them that the Bulk hame brocht ! 

Als, I pray to the Rude, 

That Marten Luther, that fals loun 

Black Bullinger, and Melancthoun 

Had bene smorde in their cude." 

Johne The Common-weill complains to Rex Humanitas that 
the common weal is neglected and explains how :-^ 

"As far our reverent fathers of Spiritualitie, 
Thay ar led by Couetice and cairles Sensualitie, 
And, as ye se, Temporalitie hes neid of correctioun, 
Quhilk hes, lang tyme bene led be publick oppressioun. 

Loe ! heir is Falset and Dissait, weill I ken,"^ 
Leiders of the merchants and sillie craftsmen. 
Quhat mervell thocht the thrie estaits backwart gang, 
Quhen sic an v}de cumpanie dwels them amang." 

The first Serjeant who is instructed by Correction to help 
put the vices in the stocks, says :-^ 

"Thair is nocht, in all this toun, — 
Bot I wald nocht this taill wastald, — 
Bot I wald hang him for his goun, 
Quhidder that it was Laird or laid." 

Spiritualitie, when he sees Sensuality and Covetousness led 
off, vows :-*^ 

"I mak ane vow to God, I sail complaine 
Unto the Paip how ye do me iniuris." 

Gude Counsall takes the part of the commons:-^ 

"Thir pure commons, daylie. as we may se, 
Declynis doun till extreme povertie ; 
For sum ar hichtit sa into thair maill, 
Thair winning will nocht find them water-kaill. 
How Prelats heichts thair teinda, it is well knawin. 
That husband-men may not weill bald thair awin. 
And now begins a plague amang them, new. 
That gentill men thair steadings taks in few : 
Thus man thay pay great ferme, or lay thair steid." 

John the Common-Weill begs Correction to begin at the bor- 
der with the thieves :'-^ 



ICX) 

"For how can we fend vs agains Ingland, 
Quhen we can nocht. within our native Land. 
• Destroy our awin Scots common trator theifis 
Quha to leill laborers daylie dois mischiefis? 

and then punish the idle-beggars, fiddlers, pardoners, jugglers, 
jesters, gamblers, and great fat "Freiris." He insists that the 
courts be reformed, too. for. as it is, petty thieves are hanged r-** 

"Bot he that all the warld hes wrangit, — 
Ane cruell tyrane. ane Strang transgressiour. 
Ane common, publick. plaine oppressour, — 
By buds may he obteine fauours 
Of Tresurers and compositours : 
Thocht he serue greit punitioun, 
Gets easie compositioun. 
And throch laws consistoriall. 
Prolixt, corrup. and perpetuall, 
The common peopill ar put sa under 
Thocht thay be puir it is na wonder." 

He complains against the vicar :^" 

"The pyre Cottar being lyke to die 
Haifand young infants, twa or thrie, 
And hes two ky. but ony ma ; 
The Vicker most haif ane of thay 
With the gray frugge that civers the bed, 
Howbeit the wyfe be purely cled, 
And gif the wyfe die on the morne, 
Thocht all the bairns sould be forlornc, 
The other kow he cleiks away. 
With the pure cot of raploch gray. 
Wald God this custome war put doun, 
Quhilk never was foundit he reassmin : 

Against the parson he has :^^ 

"Oure Persone, heir, he takis na vther pyne 
But ti ressaue his teinds, and spend them syne; 
Howbeit he be obleist, be gude ressoun. 
To preich the Evangell to his parochoun. 
Howbeit thay suld want preiching sevintin yeir, 
Our Persoun will not want ane scheif of beir. 

The Pauper also has a vv^ord against bishops :^- 

"Our bishops with thair lustie rokats quhyte 
Thay flow in riches, royallie, and delyte. 



lOI 

Lyke Paradice bene thair palices and places, 

■And wants na pleasour of the fairest faces. 

Als, thir Prelates hes great prerogatyves ; 

For quhy thay may depairt, ay, with thair wyues, 

Without ony correctioun or dammage, 

Syne, tak ane vther wantoner, but marriage." 

John the Common-Weill addresses the lords :^' 

"Tak tent, now, how the land is clein denudit 
Of gould and silver, quhik daylie gais to Rome 
For buds, mair then the rest of Christen dome." 

The merchant support John's assertion and begs for relief. 
Gude Counsall also puts in a plea against abuses and pluralities :'* 

"It is schort tyme sen ony benefice 
Was sped in Rome, except greit Bischopries ; 
Bot. noWj for ane vnworthie Vickarage 
Ane Priest will rin to Rome, in Pilgrimage 
Ane cavell quhilk was never at the scule 
Will rin to Rome, and keip ane Bischops mule 
And syne, cum hame, with mony colorit crack, 
With ane buirden of benefices on his back; 
Quhilk bene against the law, ane man alane 
For till posses ma benefices nor ane. 
Thir greit commends, I say, withoutin faill. 
Sould nocht be given bot to the blude Royall. 
So I conclude, my Lords, and sayis for me. 
Ye sould annul all this pluralitie : 

In the general discussion at the Parliament of the Thrie 
Estaitis, it is decided that priests should have but one benefice, 
that bishops should preach ; and that the clergy should be quali- 
fied for their work and worthy to perform it. Veritie says that 
at present the clergy are not worthy :^^ 

"My prudent Lords, I say that pure craftsmen 
Abufe sum Prelats ar mair for to commend. 
Gar exame them, and sa ye sail sune ken. 
How thay in vertew Bischops dois transcend." 

Gude Counsall backs up this statement:^® 

"Sowtars and tailyeours thay ar for mair expert 
In thair pure craft, and in thair handie art. 
Nor ar our Prelatis in thair vocatioun." 



I02 

Spiritualitie when forced to give an account of himself to 
Correctioun, confesses to covetousness, luxury, and immorality. 
He does part of his work by proxy — having a friar to preach in 
his place. ^■^ In turn, the abbot, abbas, parson, and prioress make 
similar confessions;^* When later, they "spuilze" the Prioress, 
according to stage directions, "scho sail haue ane kirtill of silk 
vnder hir habite,'^''* On being exposed, Spiritualitie blames the 
friars for his ruin ; the abbot curses the Reformation ; and the 
parson decides to go to France, and become a soldier.*" 

According to the acts of Parliament, noblemen are not to 
connive at thieves ; nuns are to be a class of the past ; benefices 
are to be bestowed on ecclesiastics ; bishops are not to ordain 
ignorant men as priests ; death presents are not be exacted ; no 
man is to hold a plurality ; and no baron, to exact heriot.*^ 

Flattrie who escapes the fate of his accomplices. Common 
Thift, Dissait, and Falset exults over having escaped the hang- 
man :*^ 

"Becaus I servit, — be Alhallows ! 

Till haue bene marchellit amang my fellows, 

And heich aboue them hangit, 

I maid far ma falts nor my maits ; 

I begylde all the thrie estaitis 
With my hypocrisie, 

Quhen I had on my freirs hude 

All men beleifit that I was gude, 
Now judge ye if I be. 

Tak me an rackles rubyatour, 

Ane theif. ane tyrane or ane traitour, 
Of everie vyce the plant; 

Gif him the habite of ane freir, 

The wyfis will trow, withoutin weir 

He be ane verie Saint 

I knaw that cowle and skaplarie 

Genners mair halt nor charitie, 

Thocht thay be blak or blew, 

Quhat halines is thair within 

Ane wolfe cled in ane wedders skin?" i 



CHAPTER VI. 

INTERLUDES OR FARCES. 
There are some plays which do not appear in the classifica- 
tion of the "Cambridge History of English Literature" which 
really belong to the crude early attempts at drama. Such are the 
plays which E. K. Chambers classifies as farces. First under 
farces of mediaeval type appear "The Pardoner and the Friar", 
"The Four P's," "The Weather," "Johan, Tyb, and Syr John," 
and perhaps we should add that play of domestic life, "Tom Tyler 
and his Wife," Then there are farces on classical models— for in- 
stance, "Gammer gurton's Needle," "Ralph Roister Doister,' and 
"Jack Juggler. In addition to farces, Mr. Chambers' has a di- 
vision of translations. From the Spanish he lists "Calisto and 
Meliboea";^ from the Neo-Latin, "Thersites" and "The Diso- 
bedient Child". Under pseudo-interlude there is that interminable 
disputation by John Heywood called "Love" and the contro- 
versial dialogue, "Robin Conscience." 

But neither the classification of the "Cambridge History 
of English Literature" nor that of E. K. Chambers, nor a com- 
bination of the two succeeds in including all our early plays not 
belonging to the regular drama. In the Malone Society Reprints 
we find "Love feigned and Unfeigned," "Johan the Evangelist," 
-Temperance and Humility," "The Cruell Debtter," "The Prodi- 
gal Son"— all moral plays. In the Shakespeare Jahrbuch there 
is a play. "The Cobbler's Prophecy" which still retains traces ot 
the morality plays. There also three moral tragedies which 
should be considered— "Appius and Virginia," "Cambyses," and 
"Horestes." These, however are not satirical. 

Passing to a consideration of the satire in these plays we 
have in the fragmentary morality, "Love Feigned and Unfeigned" 
some advice from Falshod on getting rich ■} 

"Wherefore my masters yf in riches and wealthe 
Ye would abound ye must practise deceipt and stealth 
fere nothinge to sweare by his nales woundth or blode 
So thow may have thy purpose and increase thy good 

103 



I04 

Thoughe some man should say that of wealthe thowe hast plentye 
thow must allways fayne that thy purse ys but emptye 
I praye ye what ma goeth throwe the wode 
but he that can play two faces in one hode. 

He boasts of his own power :- 

"I reigne as an Impetiall magystrate at Rome 
I am honored in all nations whersoe I come 
He that hath not practyse in his conversation 
Ys tearmed an asse and rude in comunicatyon." 

Love Feigned says :^ 

"Yea and youe must love faynedlie your Christia brother 
tell hime one tale and thinke in herte one other 



Marke me nowe adayes yf there be an heire of lands 
howe they practyse by falshod to have it out of hir hands 
Well yf you should studye familiarite to please 
Where youe be a gentle ma should not be worth two p — 
Oh they will cap hime and sugred words render 
they will seme as that much your selfe they do tender 
All is to have your lands in their possession 
Which, yf the may attayne by any condicion 
then may ye go alone wyth a flea in youre eare 
Yender goeth the ayre of lyn ye may se by his geare 
let him packe as a begger vnto the beggers shoole 
Such is the end of everye foole." 

In "Jo^i^*^ the Evangelist" Evil Counsell says :^ 

''I have sought England thorowe and thorowe 
Vyllage, towne, cytie and borowe 
Mith many a thousande bequeyntyd I am 
As yll tongued churles and many a prowde gentyll man 
That shrewdly riundeth many a pystell 
Whan they in yonge wyves eeres dithe whystell 
Of maters partaynyng to Venus Actes 
With fair fiateryng wordes and prety knackes 



In Cornewall I have ben and in Kent 
Westmynster, Saynt Katheryns and in unthryfts rent 



In England shall nothing me let. * 

Idlenesse gives an account of Sensuality his brother :^ 

"Syr I lefte hym on the playne of Salysbyre 
Ae told me that he wolde Ivsfte 



I05 

Some good felowe from his thryfte 
And as I trowe somewhat he wyll gette. 

In the next play "Temperance and Humility" Disobedience 
insolently remark to the two characters who give the play its 
name :* 

"What make ye in this countre 

Youre worke is all in vanyte 

Ye can not prevayle 

A)udacyte and dysobedience 

W)ith Adversytees presence 

)US wyll we vayle 

) court in constry and in many a couent 

In) every order we dwell present 

0)duely we assayle 

So many foloweth now our intent 

And I sholde tell all I sholde be shent 

For both spriall and teporall 
foloweth our ca( 

And after vs wyll do. 

There is a trifling bit of satire in the fragment of the "Cruell 
Debtter". Flateri says -7 

"The higher that the court is & the more iniquytie 
More flatery is not in the worlde reygnynge 
Then is in the courte of any noble kynge." 

On Symulation he says •} 

"In the worlde is not so false a knave as hee 
For by hym all states deceyved bee 
In Byshops and pastors he is humylitie 
And yet must be full of pryde and crudelytie 
In all the Clergy he semeth to be holynes 
Whan in them is a multytude of wyckednes, 
In magystrates he semeth to be Offabilitie 
Yet theare lurketh dysdayne and austerytie 
In the comons he semeth to be neyghbourlynes 
Yet is theare enuye. hate, and coueytousness. 

There is nothing in "The Prodigal Son" of a satirical nature 
unless it is a reference to shrewish wives :^ 

"O woo is to that man all dayes of his lyfe 
That hath a shrewde queane to his wyfe." 



io6 

We may proceed now to the "Cobbler's Prophecy", "Raph'' 
the cobbler has a dream which is a satire on the times.^'' 

"Below me thought, there were false knaves ! 
Walking like honest men verie craftely 
And few or none could be plainl}' seene 
to thrive in the world by honestie 



Men, masters and maids 
Yea, and wives too and all are too too bad. 



But O, the Baker how he plaid false with the ballance. 

And ran away from the takers tallants. 

The Bruer was as bad, the Butcher as ill 

For its their tricke to blow up leane meate with a quill." 

He warns the scholar :^^ 

"Harke ye, mas Scholler, harke ! 
The time shall come not long before the dome, 
That in despite of Rome 
Latin shall lacke 

And greeke shall beg with a wallet at his backe 
For all are not sober that goes in blacke. 

His prophecy to the country gentleman is:^- 

"The hie hill and the deepe ditch 
Which ye digd to make your Selues rich 
The chimnies so many, and alwies not anie 
The widowes wofull cries 
And babes in streetethat lies 
The bitter sweate and paine 
That tenants poore sustaine 
Will turn to your bane." 

This is followed by threats of hell and the question :^* 

"Then where will be the schollers allegories 
Where the Lawier with his dilatories 
Where the Courtier with his braverie 
And the money monging mate with all his knaverie 



Clio says 



"Yes divers Princes make good lawes. 
But most men overslip them 
And divers dying give good gifts 
But their executors nip them." 



I07 

Charon complains that he is worked to death just as the 
porter of hell does in the Towneley "Juditium" :^^ 

"Why, Popes and Prelates, Princes and Judges more than I number can. 
But the covetous misers, they fret me to the gall ; 
For they way the divel and all. 

Raph interrupts :^® 

"Mas. and may well be, for theres little money 
Stirring on the earth," 

A Gray Friar comes to Charon's barge and when questioned 
as to who he is replies :^' 

"The ghost of a gray Frier 
So troubled with nunnes, as never Frier was." 

Next comes Codrus the poor man, He wishes to know if 
hell can be any worse than earth. Charon answers :^^ 

"Codrus, I cannot help thee now and yet I wish thee wel ; 
Theres scarcely roome enough for rich 
So that no poore can come to hell 



For where one wont to come to hell 
I telle thee now comes five or sixe." 

Further there is a dialogue between Nicenes and New- 
f angle :^" 

"For once a day for fashion sake my Lady must be sicke 
No meat but mutton, or at most the pinion of a chicke 
Today hir own haire best becomes, which yellow is or gold 
A perriwigs better for to morrow, blacker to behold ; 
Today in pumps and chevrill gloves, to walke she wilbe told 
Tomorrow cuffes and countenance for feare of catching cold 
Now is she barefoot to be scene, straight on hir muffler goes. 
Now is she hufft up to the crowne, straight nusled to the nose." 

Th moral tragedies, **Appius and Virginia" and "Horestes" 
are not satirical. "Cambyses has a slight trace of satire. The 
Vice Ambidexter says :-° 

"Yet with mine eares I have heard some say, — 
That ever I was married, now cursed be the day ! 
Those be they that with curs'd wives be matched 
That husband for hawks' meat of them is up snatched, 



io8 

Head broke with a bed-staff, face be all to scratched ; 



Such were better unmarried, my masters I trow 
Than all their life after to be matched with a shrow." 

In referring to the cruelty of Cambyses, he speaks of Bishop 
Bo^ner.-^ 

"He was akin to Bishop Bonner. I think verily ; 
For both their delights was to shed blood, 
But never intended to do any good." 

Taking up now the mediaeval interlude or farce, we find 
in "The Pardoner and the Friar'"-"- satire of characterization. 
These two types are represented as discussing their importance 
to society and the value of prayers and relics. Each underrates 
the other. Both try to talk at once but neither managing to say 
more than a sentence at a time, a fight ensues to settle who shall 
have the floor. The quarrel is extended to include the curate and 
Neighbour Pratt who come to prevent the desecration of the 
church. In the end the newcomers are beaten and driven of¥, 
leaving the pardoner and the friar in possession of the field. 
Plainly the aim of the author is to make sport of these two types. 
He is not serious; he has no lesson to teach. He has grasped 
the idea that the true function of the drama is to amuse ;hence 
he does not consider it necessary to retain the Old English fair- 
ness and make modifications concerning certain friars and cer- 
tain pardoners, for his purpose the two types are fit subjects for 
ridicule. 

The author of the play just discussed — John Heywood — 
wrote three other satirical farces : "The Four P. P." "The 
Weather," and "Johan, Tyb and Syr John. All are satirical of 
classes — of the palmer, the pardoner, the priest, the duped hus- 
band, and the unfaithful wife. Here we have the best illus- 
tration of early dramatic satire. The method is no longer that of 
the preacher but that of the dramatist. 

In "The Four P. P." a palmer and a pardoner boast of their 
claims to merit and distinction much as they do in the preceding 
play. The palmer is proud of the number of shrines that he has 
visited ; but the pardoner contemptuously refers to them :-^ 

"For all yorr labour and ghostly intent 
Ye will come home as wise as ve went." 



109 

and tells him that he could have granted him remission of his 
sins; for he is truly a pardoner. The palmer retorts: 

"Truly a pardoner! that may be true 
But a true pardoner doth not ensue. 
Right seldom is seen or never. 
That truth and pardoners dwell together." 

To this the pardoner says : 

"By the first part of this last tale 
It' seemeth ye came of late from the ale." 

When the pedlar displays his goods, the palmer tells him :" 

"we be like friars; 
We are but beggars, we be no buyers." 

When the pardoner makes his visit to hell in behalf of his 
friend, Margery Corson, Lucifer readily grants his request for 
her freedom :-^ 

"For all we devils within this den 
Have more to do with two women 
Than with all the charge we have beside ; 
Wherefore, if thou our friend will be tried 
Apply thy pardon to women so, 
That unto us there come no mo." 

The palmer, however, takes up the defence of woman and 
wins the prize for telling the greatest lier^ 

"His tale is all much perilous; 
But part is much more marvellous 
As where he said the devils complain 
That women put them to such pain. 
Be their conditions so crooked and crabbed 
Forwardly fashioned, so wayward and wrabbed 
So far in division, and stirring such strife 
That all the devils be weary of their life. 
This in effect he told for truth, 
Whereby much marvel to me ensueth, 
That women in hell such shrews can be. 
And here so gentle, as far as I see 
Yet have I seen many a mile 
And many a woman in the while 
Not one good city, town, or borough 
In Christendom but I have been thorough 



no 

' . ■ And thus I would ye should understand 

I have seen women five hundred thousand 

And oft with them long time tarried, 

Yet in all places where I have been 

Of all the women that I have seen 

I never saw nor knew in my conscience 

Any one woman out of patience." 

Heywood's "Weather" is purely farcial ; the dififerent classes 
are represented as anxious to secure weather that will promote 
business. Each of course is selfish in its interests. The wea- 
ther that will dry the clothes of the laundress will spoil the com- 
plexion of the beauty. The coarse play "Johan, Tyb and Syr 
John" satirizes the three types — the henpecked husband, the un- 
faithful wife and immoral priest. His other play "Love" is a 
wordy disputation which can not be classed as satirical. 

The farces on Classical models — "Jack Juggler", "Gammer 
Gurton's Needle", and "Ralph Roister Doister" were written with 
the idea of amusement foremost. Diccon in "Gammer Gurton", 
"Jack Juggler" in the piece of the same name and Matthew 
Merrygreek in "Roister Doister" remind us of the old vice in the' 
moral plays. In their control of the plot they come close to the 
Vice, Haphazard in "Apius and Virginia" and Ambidexter in 
"Cambyses". 

Of these plays "Jack Juggler" seems to be the only one that 
is satiric ; and here the satire is hidden. The prologue says that 
the author takes the grounds of his comedy from Plautus and 
with a satirical touch adds :'-' 

" fr r higher things indite 

In no w;?e he would, for yet the time is so queasy. 

That he that speaketh best is least thankworthy, 

Therefore, sith nothing but trifles may be had 

You shall hear a thing that only shall make you merry and glad. 

"And such a trifling matter, as when it shall be done. 
Ye may report and say ye have heard nothing at all. 
Therefore I tell you all, before it be begun 
That no man look to hear of matters substantial. 
Nor matters of any gravity either great or small 
For this maker showed us that such manner things 
Do never well beseem little bovs' handlings. 



Ill 

But in contrast to this tone of innocence we find in an un- 
assigned part, apparently a prologue the following hints of a hid- 
den meaning:-* 

"Somewhat it was, saith the proverb old 
That the cat winked when her eye was out, 
That is to say no tale can be told, 
But that some English may be picked thereof out 
If so to search the Latin and ground of it men will go about ' 
As this trifling interlude that before you hath been rehearsed. 
May signify some further meaning if it be well rehearsed. 

"Such is the fashion of the world now-a-days 
That the simple innocents are deluded, 
And an hundred thousand divers way 
By subtle and crafty means shamefully abused 
And by strength, force, and violence ofttimes compelled 
To believe and say the moon is made of a green cheese 
Or els have great harm, and percase their life lese. 



"He must say he did amiss, though he never did offend 
He must ask forgiveness, where he did no trespass 
Or els be in trouble, care and misery without end, 
And be cast in some arrearage without any grace 
And that thing he saw done before his own face 
He must by compulsion stiffly deny 
And for fear whether he woll or not sa tongue, you lie." 

Bongrace scouts at the excuse of Jenkin Careaway's — 
namely, that a double has taken his place :-^ 

"Why, thou naughty villain, darest thou affirm to me 
That which was never seen nor hereafter shall be? 
That one may have two bodies and two faces 
And that one man at one time may be in two places ? 

In this there may be a hidden thrust at the doctrine of tran- 
substantiatiion. A reading of "Tom Tyler and his wife" shows 
some amusing domestic comedy. The poor henpecked Tom after 
securing an advantage over his wife through the trick of his 
friend the tailor, unwisely loses it by telling her that his friend 
had given her the beating for him. The poor fellow's Song 
is:=^° 

"I am a poor Tyler in simple aray 

And get a poor living but eight pence a day 

My wife as I get it, doth spend it away 



112 

And I cannot help it, she saith ; wot ye why 
For wedding and hanging is destiny 



By marrying of strife which I chose to my wife. 
To leade such a life with sorow and grief 
As I tell you true, is to bad for a Jew." 

In the old play "Common Conditions" there is some more of 
this crude criticism of women :^^ 

"Proflfer them the thing thei most desire, they would it denie 
Thei are so full of sleightes and fetches that scarce the Foxe, hee 
In every poicte with women maie scarce compared bee ; 
For when men praie, they will denaie ; or when men most desire 
Then mark me a woman, she is sonest stirred to ire 
Their hedds are fantasticall. and full of varietie straunge 
Like to the moone, whose operation it is often tymes to chaunge." 

In "Calisto and Meliboea" Sempronio the parasite tries to 
cheer the jilted lover. Calisto, by telling him that women are not 
the goddesses that they seem :^- 

"Flee from their beginnings, eschew their folly : 
Thou knowest they do evil things many 
They keep no mean, but rigour of intention: 
Be it fair (or) foul, wilful without reason. 
Keep them never so close, they will be showed. 
Give tokens of love by many subtle ways : 
Seeming to be sheep, and serpently shrewd ; 
Craft in them renewing that never decays. 



It is a wonder to see their dissembling, 
Tlieir flattering countenance, their ingratitude, 
Tnconstancy, false witness, feigned weeping: 
The'r vain-glory and how they can delude 
Their foolishness, their jangling not mew'd 
Their lecherous lust and vileness therefore ; 
Witch crafts and charms to make men to them lore 
Their embalming and their unshamefacedness ; 
Their bawdry, their subtlety, and fresh attiring; 
What trimming, what painting to make fairness ! 
Their false intents and flickering smiling! 
Therefore lo ! it is an old saying 
That women be the devil's net, and head of sin, 
And man's misery in Paradise did begin." 

The next play "Thersites" may be taken as a satire upon 
boasters, but it :.- probably only realistic and comic in intent. 



113 

This is true to a less extent in the case of "The Disobedient 
Child." The son is in character ; he complains of school-life :^^ 

"Yet like to the school none under the sun 
Bringeth to children so much heaviness. 



"For as the bruit goeth by many a one, 
Their tender bodies both night and day 
Are whipped and scourged, and beat like a stone 
That from top to toe the skin is away. 
So long as my wits shall be mine own 
The schoolhouse for me shall stand alone." 

The father regrets his inability to control his child :^* 

"Science and learning is so little regarded. 
That none of us doth muse or study 
To see our children well taught and instructed. 
We deck them, we trim them with gorgeous array. 
We pamper and feed them, and keep them so gay 
That in the end of all this they be our foes." 

The priest, too, has a complaint ; the clerk has gone to the 
ale-house leaving his work to the care of his superior.'^ 

"Great pity it were that the church should be disordered. 
Because that such swillbowls do not their works. 
And to say truth in many a place. 
And other great towns besides this same, 
The priests and parishioners be in like case 
Which to the churchwardens may be shame. 



CHAPTER VII 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 

It has been shown that satire plays an important part in the 
Early English Drama, especially in the moralities where it en- 
livens the direct didacticism of these dull old plays with virile 
attacks upon the church and society ; and thus teaches in an indi- 
rect manner what should be by attempting to abolish what should 
not be. The reformatory idea, however, was not always pres- 
ent. The authors at times merely gave expression to that common 
satirical spirit by virtue of which men delight in ridiculing the 
follies of others. And yet the great seriousness of the English 
people on the whole leads us to conclude that the larger part of 
this early satire was reformatory in purpose. 

The most fertile field of this satire lay in the controversial 
drama foreshadowing and centering about the Reformation. The 
three greatest names are those of John Skelton, John Bale, and 
Sir David Lyndsay. All three show the vigor so characteristic of 
the English and Scotch in making their attacks upon religious and 
social evils ; all, though priests, stoop to coarseness and ob- 
scenities which had better be let die. The only point in citing 
them is that, if true, they serve to show the prevailing cor- 
ruption of the church, the looseness of morals in general, and 
the inefficiency of the government. And they were undoubtedly 
true in a great degree ; the native fairness of English satire 
leads to this conclusion. Another fact which seems to strengthen 
this inference — that the licentiousness of the times was a re- 
flection of the influence of the immoral clergy upon society — 
is the small amount of satire aimed at the Protestant reformers. 
We have one play "Respublica" which accuses the Protestant min- 
isters of having brought ruin upon the Commonwealth. In "New 
Custom" both parties Catholics and Protestant are re]iresented. 
Each satirizes the other. The conclusion of the play, however, 
shows that the author wrote with the intention of disparaging the 
Romish Church. Its three satirical abstractions represent the 
two faults of Popish priests — Perverse Doctrine and Ignorance — 

]]4 



"5 

and the cardinal sin of the Middle Ages — Hypocrisy. If we 
accept satire as the weapon of the persecuted, then the small 
quantity of saitre directed against the promulgators of the Ref- 
ormation indicates where the corruption lay. Again, if we be- 
lieve satirists appear when society and its institutions become 
decadent and appear as spokesmen of the popular thought, then 
we must conclude that in this period which was to culminate in 
the Reformation, there was ample material for satire and that 
there were a few who believed the drama, or what was then the 
drama, the most effective means of presenting it. For three 
centuries there had been a more or less scattered attack upon 
the evils and inconsistencies of the church in the undramatic 
literature of the time. Now in the sixteenth century when affairs 
were approaching a crisis, the drama became a potent factor in 
presenting the vexed questions to the mind of the people. 

A classification of the old English plays into groups — (i) 
those which contain considerable satire, (2) those which are only 
incidentally satiric — shows the following lists. Under the first 
heading we should name the twenty-fifth pageant of the Ludus 
Coventriae as containing the broadest and best sustained satire 
of all the miracles cycles, addressed as it is in an ironical vein to 
the audience by a character who was always able to get a hear- 
ing — the Devil. With it should be mentioned the twenty-eighth 
Towneley pageant noted for its social satire. For the essen- 
tially satiric moralities we name the following plays : "Magnifi- 
cencs," "Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis," "Respublica,'' "New 
Custom," "Lusty Ji^iventus," "King John," and the "Three Laws." 
The satirical farces are: "Tlie Four P's," "Johan, Tvb, and Sir 
jhon." "The \\'eather." and the "Pardoner and the Friar." Under 
the second heading as representatives of the miracles, we note the 
various plays of the Towneley cycle and the Ludus Coventriae 
not included in the first division and also the Chester plays. 
The moralities only incidentally satiric take in : "The Pride of 
Life." "The Castle of Perseverance," "Mind, Will and Under- 
standing," "Mankind," "Everyman," "Mundus et Infans," "Na- 
ture." "Hickscorner," "Youth," "Four Elements," "The Diso- 
bedient Child." "Nice Wanton." and perhaps we should note for 
the farces, "Jack Juggler." 

All this satire fits in admirably with the. didactic subject- 
matter and purpose of the Old English plays. These beginning 



ii6 

with the idea of teaching the crude, ignorant people the story of 
the Scriptures continued to do so until the close of the six- 
teenth century ; but at the same time widening their scope, they 
came to include the representation of religious lessons which ap- 
]iealed more to the intellect than did the narrative of the miracles. 
The same audience went to the miracle plays and the morality 
plays, at least to the popular moralities. The one taught them 
the Bible ; the other, ethics. In both satire appeared but of 
course with more prominence in the moralities ; for these plays 
not being bound so strictly by convention to a close representation 
of the Scriptures nor so much under the sway of the clergy as 
the miracles, could attack evils in the church and society and 
still conform to the didactic purpose of the plays even though they 
did so indirectly. 

In the farces or interludes which had an entirely different 
purpose from the two kinds of religious drama in that they gave 
up the old idea of instruction for that of amusement, satire came 
in nicely as one of the means of raising a laugh. 

A survey of this informal satire shows the use of both the 
direct and the indirect methods. The first is well illustrated in 
the advice of the devil in the "Ludus Coventriae" ; in the Bis- 
hop's complaint on the times in the 'T^ride of Life" ; in Avarice's 
advice to Mankind in the "Castle of Perseverance" ; in the mes- 
senger's rebuke in the "Four Elements to authors who neglect 
their native English ; in Pity's complaint in "Hickscorner". Com- 
pare the speech of Good Counsel in "Lusty Juventus" with that of 
a character of the same name in the Scottish play, "Ane Satyre 
of the Thrie Estaitis." The first is a dull lament in the direct 
method : 

"O where may a man find now one faithful congregation 
That is not infected with dissension or discord 
Who nseth not now covetousness and deceit 
Who giveth to the poor that which is liis due." 

The second, though still a lament is dramtic, indirect. Gude 
Counsall represents herself as driven out of Scotlau'! in a speech 
that makes her almost human : 

"But out of Scotland — wa ! alace ! — • 
I haif hene fleimit lang tyme space." 



117 

Of the two methods, the indirect is the more effective. It 
must have been exceedingly impressive to see a Pope in despair on 
the Judgment Day and hear from his own hps his confession 
of worldliness and simony. Such daring occurs only once in the 
miracles — in the 1591 edition of the "Chester Plays". Here its 
seeming boldness is not so wonderful after all if we consider its 
late occurrence at a time when Protestantism was established in 
England and the Pope no longer so highly esteemed as he had 
been in preceding ages; or if we admit that it may be only the 
transfer to the drama by literary antiquarians of the Dance of 
Death motive so common in mediaeval art. But to take up an- 
other instance which can not be discounted, we revert to the time 
of the Reformation — to the reign of King Henry VHI. Here 
we find an attack upon the Pope by the fiery Bishop Bale. As 
in the Chester play, the Pope appears on the stage, but not to 
confess his sins; he rather proposes to indulge in them to the 
utmost. Unlike the Chester Pope he is at times an abstraction 
— Usurpyd Powder ; at times a specific Pope — for instance. In- 
nocent the Third. 

After excommunicating King John, he says to Dissimulation : 

"I shall soch gere avaunce 
As wyll be to us a pereptual f urderaunce ; 
Fyrst eare-confessyon, than pardons than purgatory 
Sayntes — worchyppyng than sekyng of imagery 
Than Laten servyce, with the cerymonye meny 
Whereby our byshoppes and abbots shall get money. 
I wy]\ make a law to burne all herytykes, 
And kyngs to depose whan they are sysmatykkes. 
I wyll allso reyse up the fower begging orders 

The tone and spirit of the satire is pessimistic but not so 
sweepingly pessimistic as to exclude the natural hopefulness of 
the English and their desire for impartiality. Often after a 
bitter denunciation of the clergy which would seem to include 
the entire ecclesiastical hierarchy, the author modifies his state- 
ments by exceptions. 

In type the satire is for the most part impersonal ; the author 
speaks not so much his own opinions as those of his class. He 
is the mouthpiece, the spokesman for society against its abuses 
whether in church, the state, or the members. 

The objects of attack are those which have always been the 



ii8 

target of scorn and ridicule, foibles in politics, religion, and 
society . The Political and religious satire is peculiarly English ; 
the Social satire is conventional and little dififerent from the Latin 
except that it lays more stress upon the morals of classes than 
upon those of individuals. 

Taking up Political satire, we find just one play, and that 
a fragment which may be classed as a Political Morality. It is 
■'Albyon Knyght". Other plays, however, contain political allu- 
sions — for instance, "Magnificence," "Godly Queen Hester," 
"Respublica," "Wealth and Health" and "King John." Among 
the miracle cycles, the Towneley plays have reference to mis- 
government in the complaint of the shepherds upon the economic 
conditions of their day and in the enumeration among the devil's 
followers of false inquest-holders and tax-gatherers. "Magnifi- 
cence" written early in the sixteenth shows the hostility 
existing between the government of England and France 
in Fancy's report of the close watch kept for spies at 
the sea-coast. It also shows the inconsistencies in the. 
character and in the methods of the leading politician of the 
day — Wolsey — by the four abstractions. Counterfeit Count- 
enance, Crafty Conveyance, Cloked Collusion, and Courtly Abu- 
sion. each one of which is thought to embody some leading trait 
of this powerful statesman. They represent him as a vain, haughty 
upstart who has intrenched himself in the favor of the king until 
his power is about regal. The whole play is a satirical protest 
against the false, scheming politicians and tale-bearers who are 
wont to gather about a young prince. And in this case the great 
politician is Wolsey. 

"Respublica" also has reference to political affairs — to the 
mal-aclministration of the ministers of Edward VI. The realm 
is represented on the verge of ruin through their sweeping public 
robberies and their oppression of the church. 

"Wealth and Health" has a political allusion to the Flemish 
war and a protest against the influx of the Flemish weavers. 
These the play represents as drunken and undesirable subjects 
both in AVill's description and in the character, Drunken Hance. 

"King John" is political to the extent that it portrays the 
ill feeling existing between the government and the papal power. 
Sedition who is able to appear as any member of the clergy, 
regular or secular, holds princes the representatives of the tem- 



119 

poral power in "scorne. hate, and disdayne." On the other hand 
King John expresses his opinion of the spiritual power as fol- 
lows : 

"Ther is no malyce like to that of the clergy." 

"Godly Queen Hester" alludes to an upstart lord who has 
become very powerful. The satire is upon him and the social 
conditions which follow as a result of his prominence in politics. 
The accusations against him are similar to those against Wolsey 
in "Magnificence", and may be aimed at Wolsey. 

But as has been said the essentially Political Morality is 
"Albyon Knyght." It shows the selfishness of the four orders in 
the state — the ruler, the nobles, the clergy, and the common 
people. Each works for its own interests in Parliament and pre- 
vents the passage or execution of laws which may in any way be 
to its disadvantage. Injury by means of maintenance corrupts 
the law courts. Division, his accomplice, sends two well-named 
characters. Double Devyce and Old Debate to set the commons 
against the king and to stir up strife between the nobles and the 
clergy — the "lordes temporall and the lordes spirituall." It is a 
realistic portrayal, as far as it goes, of the inner workings of 
politics. 

A brief review of the subjects of political satire includes the 
following topics: (i) the failure to pass laws or to enforce 
them through the existence of selfish factions in the government — 
in Parliament. (2) the pride, arrogance, extravagance, avarice, 
and double-dealing of upstart politicians, (3) the extortion of 
false taxcollectors. (4 ) the Flemish War and its results — taxation 
and an influx of foreigners, and (5) the fleeing of the clergy by 
unprincipled ministers of state. 

Under Social satire which deals with the morals of society. 
with fashions, and with the foibles and follies of classes, we find 
much of the generalized lament against the sins of the age. Here 
are tirades against ambition, superstition ; pride, arrogance, prodi- 
gality, flattery ; against drunkenness, gambling, quarrelsomeness, 
and dishonesty in trade such as adulteration of ale. use of false 
weights and false measures; and against usury, bribery perjury, 
and the Seven Deadly Sins, especially avarice, gluttony, sloth, and 
immorality. 

The fashions and follies that are satirized embrace clothes.. 



120 

the haunting of taverns, the playing of bowls and skittles, the 
telling tales of Robin Hood, the marrying of old women for 
their money, the writing of ballads and matter not worth a 
"mite". The satire against fashionable clothes is generally de- 
livered by Lucifer, Satan, Lust, or Pride. The devil claims to be 
the originator of new styles and to have no difficulty in inducing 
men and women to follow them. 

The classes satirized are : officials such as imperator, rex, 
judge, justice, mayor, jurors, summoner, tax-collector, and exec- 
utor, courtier, lawyer, merchant, broker, miser, doctors, min- 
strels, dancers, upstarts, foreigners, and workmen such as colliers, 
plowmen, carters, cobblers, tailors and servants. 

The richest field of English satire, however, is Religious sa- 
tire. The entire clergy is accused of avarice, immorality, and 
hypocrisy from the Pope to the humblest person or priest. Some- 
times the Pope appears on the stage in person, either unnamed or 
specified, as Innocent the Third, or Pope Julie, or as in the case 
of Clement the Seventh he is reported as guilty of some enorn^ity 
such as buying the Papacy. Sometimes his agents, wicked ab- 
stractions such as Iniquity, Tyranny, and Avarice, characterize 
him. Sometimes the devil himself claims him as his son. The 
most terrible satire on the Pope is, I think, in "The Three Laws." 
A list of the other esslesiastics who come under the lash of the 
satirists would include cardinals, bishops, prelates, abbots, par- 
sons, priests, monks, canons, nuns, friars, presbyters, preachers, 
divines and curates. 

To consider this religious satire in greater detail than the 
other kinds seems proper as it forms the bulk of the informal 
dramatic satire. There was satire directed at the hypocrisy of the 
friars ; the Latin of the clergy ; the ignorance of many of the 
inferior clergy ; sinful priests, unchaste nuns, avaricious prelates, 
false preachers, lazy divines, and apostate monks. There was the 
bitterest satire against the form and ceremonies of the church in 
the Controversial dramas. Lender the ban were legacies, be- 
quests, mortuaries, bulls, pardons, indulgences, relics, hallowed 
bells, tapers, candlesticks, censers, portas. bedes, copes, surplices, 
oil salt, bran, cruettes, mass, trentals, pilgrimages, and worship 
of saints ; also the singing in Latin, the ducking at grace, the 
mummyng. the bearing of the cross, the crouching, the setting 
up of lights, the reading of the gospel and epistle, the fasting in 



121 

Lent — all these were condemned by the reformers. The satirist 
noted the striking contrast between the attention the clergy paid 
to Christ and that to idle useless ceremonies ; he bewailed their 
working upon the superstition of the ignorant masses their false 
glosses on the Scriptures, their hostility to princes, their join- 
ing with lawyers, their methods of securing money at the ex- 
pense of the poor. 

The religious satire in the drama dealt with the same sub- 
ject-matter as the early undramatic satire. Both aired the same 
inconsistencies. The thirteenth century "When Holy Church is 
under Foot" points out the same fault in the church as the late 
morality, "Three Ladies of London", and that College play "The 
Return from Parnassus" or "The Scourge of Simony." Skelton 
and Lyndsay of the sixteenth century merely renew the attack 
upon the church which had begun as early as the thirteenth cen- 
tury. This they cast in the most popular literary form of the 
time — the drama. The brunt of the attack falls upon the friar. 
Heywod in his farces and Lyndsay in his "Pleasant Satyre" give 
us the same opinion of him as the early "Jack Upland" and 
"The Song on the Friars." In the last a probationary friar who 
has become disgusted before his year of probation is up, charges 
them with hypocrisy and immorality. They pretend to be ab- 
stemious and to lead a life of prayer and study, but in reality they 
are good livers, good dressers, and keen sportsmen. They do 
not practice what they preach. 

"Full wysely can thai preche and say 
Bot as they preche no thing do thai." 

There is the same accusation in the poem "On the Minorite 
Friars" ; 

"Thai preche alle of povert, bot that love thai noght ; 
For gode mete to thair mouthe the toun is thurgh soght 
Wyde are thair wonnynges, and wonderfully vvroght ; 



Sle thi fadre, and jape thi modre. and thai wyl the assoile." 

The generalized lament so common in the Moralities appears 
in these early poems. In the fourteenth century "On the Times" 
we find, "Dred of God is went" and "Goddes dere halydays ar 
noght." In "A Poem on the Times of Edward 11", the specific 
charge is simony. 



122 

"Voys of clerk shal lytyl be herd 
At the court of Rome 
Were he never so gode a clerk 
Without selver an lie come ; 

John Gower in the prologue to his "Confessio Amantis" 
speaks of the inconsistencies in the church in th same tone as the 
foregoing poem : 

"For if men loke in holy churche 
Betwene the word and that they wirche 
There is a ful gret difference." 

So, too, he and the author of "Piers Plowman" express 
opinions on the responsibility which prelates feel, similar to that 
of Exereitation in "Longer thou Livest more Fool than Art" : 

"Ther ben of suche many glade. 
Whan they to thilke estate ben made 
Nought for the merite of the charge 
But for they wolde hem self discharge 
Of poverte and become grete." 

We may say that the drama deals with contemporary prob- 
lems — religious, social, and political — just as the songs, ballads, 
and other literary forms. It has laments, direct rebuke, and invec- 
tives. It reflects social conditions which do not dififer from those 
in "Piers Plowman". There is discontent, hunger, lack of em- 
ployment, hosts of beggars, and the custom of haunting taverns 
and marrying for money. Its subject matter, then, is not new. 
Its method is generally narrative and its characterization, if we 
can call it by that name, direct, a character analyzes himself or 
another character. But that the dramatic method, crude as it is, is 
superior to the undramatic may be shown by this instance. The 
early poems speak of the inferior clergy as ignorant and ineffi- 
cient ; the drama, at least in two cases, gives us types of the stupid 
ecclesiastic in Caconos and Sir Lawrence Livingless. The first 
is characterized indirectly by what he says he does and the second, 
both indirectly and directly. They are real, concrete and there- 
fore more effective than any general statement concerning ig- 
norant prists. 

Compared with the informal dramatic satire of Ben Jonson, 
this early satire is lacking in unity and characterization. Its 
satire is not so all j)ervading as that in "The Alchemist" and 



123 

"\'olpone". It is rather a foerunner of the satirical drama of 
the later decades of the Elizabethan period. Ben Jonson satirizes 
a particular religious sect — the Puritans, and the follies of 
mankind in general by excessive exaggeration. The satire on 
woman is represented in the characters, "Fine Madam Would-be" 
and "Dame Pliant". The best Puritan types are the two charac- 
ters in "The Alchemist" — Tribulation Wholesome and the deacon 
Ananias — and the sactimonious Zeal-of-the Land-Busy in "Bar- 
tholomew Fair". Here in Ben Jonson's dramas we find satire 
treated in an artistic manner ; it is considered material not for 
instruction but for amusement. Many of the characters in the 
plays still show morality relationship by their names. The in- 
creased dramatic skill afifords a stronger presentation of satire 
than the authors of the early moralities were able to secure. John 
Heywood in his farces had the right idea that the function of the 
drama was not the same as that of the sermon. 

To sum up the political and social traits reflected in this 
early drama would require mention of allusions to jealousy of 
royal ministers,, to arrogant political upstarts, to maladministra- 
tion in the reigns of Henry VHI, Edward VI, and ]\Iary, and to 
dissension between the different orders in Parliament in Eliza- 
beth's reign. Social references would include all the satire di- 
rected against the various classes, such as the greedy merchant, 
the dishonest tapster, the avaricious lawyer, the quack doctor, 
and the upstart foreigner. The gallant should not be omitted, 
for he furnishes us data for fashions, high small bonnets, high 
head dresses, horns, side locks, jagged hoods, collars splayed with 
fur, ruffs, paint, perfume, jagged clothes, prankyd gownes, no 
sleeves, wide full sleeves, wide gowns, gowns of three yards, 
velvet coats, shirts of fine Holland, stomachers, doublets opened in 
front and behind, gay gyrdyls, "empti purses", a dagger, breeches 
as big as good barrels, crimson hose, striped hose with corselettys 
of fyne velves slyped to knee, and below the knee hosen parti- 
colored. There was the same inconsistency in dressing in those 
days as now : they did not dress according to tliat old play Nature^ 
"to kepe the carcas warm." 

'"My doublet ys onlaced byfore 
A stomacher of satan and no more 
Rayn it, snow yt never so sore 
Me thynketh I am to hote." 



124 

The allusions to religion, however, form the bulk of the 
€arly ("ramtic satire. They show the strife that existed between 
the temporal and the spiritual powers ; the corruption that was 
prevalent in the clergy and the intense feeling aroused by it, 
which became especially marked as the era of the Reformation 
approached. These allusions enforced by others in the songs 
and poems of the period, and in pamphlets and tracts such as 
^'Rede me and be Nott Wrothe" lead us to infer that they were 
in gfreat measure true. 



REFERENCES. 



CHAPTERS I AND II. 

1. Alden, Raymond M., "The. Rise of Formal Satire in England under 
Classical Influence." 

2. Tucker. Samuel Marion, '"V'ersc Satire in England before the 
Renaissance." 

3. Pollard, A. W. 

4. "Political Poems and Songs Relating to English History during the 
Period from the Accession of Edw. Ill to that of Rich. III., Ed. 
Thomas Wright I, 263. 

5. "The Complete Works of Chaucer," Ed. W. W. Skeat. 

6. Dodsley's Old English Plays. Ed. Hazlitt. vol. I. 

7. Early English Text Society. 37 Part 4, Lyndesays Works. 
^. Chester Plays. Ed. T. Wright, Shak. Sos. 

•I. Ibid. 

10. Ibid. 

11. Ibid. 

12. "Ludus Coventriae." Ed. J. C. Hallivvell- Phillips, Shak. Soc. 1841. 
p. 7 Iff. 

13. Ibid. XX p. 190. 

14. Ibid. XXV p. 3.j2. 

lo. Ibid. XXXII pp. 319-21. 

16. Towneley plays, Ed. George England, E. E. T. S. Ex. Ser. 71, XXX p. 
374. 

17. Ibid. XXX p. 376 11. 296fif. 

18. Ibid. II p. 12 11 104 f. 

19. Ibid. XII. p. 109 11 285-6. 

20. Ibid. Xn, p. 112. 

21. Digby Mysteries, Ed. F. J. Furnivall. E. E. T. S. EX. SER. 70. 

22. Chester Plays, vol. I, VI, p. 106. 

23. Ibid. XXV, pp. 184-5. vol. II. 

24. Ibid. vol. II, XXV, p. 187. 

25. Ibid. 

26. Ibid. 

27. Ibid. 

28. Ancient Cornish Drama, Ed. E. Norris, p. 215, vol. II. 

29. Ludus Coventriae, J. O. Halliwell-Phillips, X, p. 98. 

30. Ibid. XII, p. 118. 

31. Ibid. XII, p. 119. 

32. Ibid. XIV, p. 131. 

33. Ibid. XIV, p. 136. 

125 



126 

34. Ibid. VI. p. 61. 

35. Ibid. XVI, p. 158. 

36. Ibid. XV, p. 145. 

37. Ibid. XXV pp. 241 ff. 

38. Towneley Plays. E. E. T. S. ex ser. 71, XXX p. 373 11. 183 ff. 

39. Ibid. XXX p. 373 11. 189 f. 

40. Ibid. XXX p. 376 11. 279 ff. 

41. Ibid. XX pp. 204-5 11 19 ff. 

42. Ibid. XXII p. 243 11. 15 ff. 

43. Ibid. XXI. p. 233 11. 159-63. 

44. Ibid. XII p. 101 11. 31-2. 

45. Ibid. XLI p. 102 11. 55-75. 

46. Ibid. XII p. 102 1. 93 f. 

47. Ibid. XXX p. 377, 11 307-22. 

48. Ibid. XXX p. 385 11. 570 ff. 

49. Ibid. XXX pp. 377-8 11. 333-9. 

50. Ibid. XXIV p. 292 1. 372 ff. 

51. Ibid. XXX p. 379, 1. 372 ff. 

52. Ibid. XXX pp. 374-5 11. 233-43. 

53. Ibid. XXX p. 371 11. 323-3r. 

54. Ibid. XXX p. 384 1 552. 

55. Ibid. p. 34 11 389-96. 

56. Ibid. III. p. 28 11. 186-89. 

57. Ibid. III. p. 35 11. 397 ff. 

58. Ibid. II pp. 94-5 11. 299 ff. 

59. Ibid. XII p. 103 1. 95 ff. 

60. Ibid. XIII p. 118 11. 73-98. 

61. Ibid. XXXVIII pp. 338-9 11. 30-52. 

62. Ibid. p. 347 1. 233. 

63. Ibid. XXX p. 372 1. 161. 

64. Ibid. XXX p. 375 1. 253. 
6.5. Ibid. XXX p. 375 1260 ff. 

66. Ibid. XV p. 164 11. 146-50. 

67. Two Coventry Corpus Christi Plays. Ed. Hardin Craig. E. E. T. S. 
ex. ser. 87. 

68. Digby Mysteries. Ed. F. J. Furnivall, E. E. T. S. ex. ser. 70. 

69. Non-Cycle Mystery Plays. E. E. T.S. ex. ser. 104. 

CHAPTER III. 

The Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. pp. 
Furnivall, F. J., 'Pollard, A. W. and Walter Kay Smart 

3. Ludus Coventriae pp. 

4. Quellen und Forschungen. Ed. Alois Brandl. pp. 24-26 

5. The Macro Plays. Ed., F. J. Furnivall, and A. W. Pollard, E. 
E. T. S. Ex. ser. 91 p. 80. 
Ibid. pp. 102-3 11 843ff. 
Ibid. p. 103 1. 858ff. 
Ibid. p. 103 1. 865. 



127 



9. 


Ibid. p. 109 1. lOtWflF. 




10. 


Ibid. p. 110 1. 1091 




11. 


Ibid. p. Ill 1. 1130 f. 




12. 


Ibid. p. Ill '. 1149 f. 




13. 


Ibid. p. P -2 1. 1158 f. 




14. 


Ibid. p. 113 1. 1198. 




15.' 


Ibid. p. 113 1. 1215. 




10. 


Ibid. p. 147 1. 2333. 




17. 


Ibid. p. 152 1. 2527 ff. 




18. 


Ibid. p. 153 1. 2542 f. 




19. 


Ibid. p. 154 1. 2559 f. 




20. 


Ibid. pp. 154-5 11. 2606 ff. 




21. 


Ibid. p. 156 1. 2664. 




22. 


Ibid p. 158 1. 2716 ff. 




23. 


Ibid. p. 158 1. 2731 ff. 




24. 


Smart, Walter Kay. ''Some English and Latin Sources 
lels for the Morality of Wisdom." 


and Paral 


2o. 


The Macro Plays. E. E. T. S. Ex. Ser. 91. 1. 470 ff. 




2(i. 


Ibid. p. 51 1. 487 ff. 




27. 


Ibid. p. 55 1. 604 ff. 




28. 


Ibid. p. 55 1. 608 ff. 




29. 


Ibid. p. 56 1. 6.32 ff. 




30. 


Ibid. p. 56 1. 640 ff. 




31. 


Ibid. p. 56 1. 652 f. 




32. 


Ibid. p. 57 1. 650 and 669. 




33. 


Ibid. p. 57 1. 666. 




34. 


Ibid. p. 57. 670 f. 




35. 


Ibid. p. 57 1. 672 ff. 




36. 


Ibid p. 57 1. 676 ff. 




37. 


Ibid. p. 57 1. 681 ff. 




38.' 


"ibid. p. 58 1. 684 f. 




39. 


Ibid. p. 59 1. 732 ff. 




40. 


Ibid p. 60 1. 741 ff. 




41. 


Ibid. p. 61 1. 770. 




42. 


Ibid. p. 61 1. 796. 




43. 


Ibid. p. 63 1. 854 ff. 




44. 


Ibid. p. 5 1. 124. 




45. 


Ibid. p. 11 1. 291. 




46. 


Ibid. p. 19 1. 498. 




47. 


Ibid. p. 1. 




48. 


Ibid. p. 23 1. 626. 




49. 


Ibid. p. 23 1. 622. 




50. 


Ibid. pp. 24-26. 

CHAPTER IV. 




1. 


Dodsley, Old English Plays, vol. I, p. 263. 





2. and 3. Ibid. p. 262. 
4. Ibid. p. 270. 



128 



5. 


Dodsley, 0. E. P. vol. I, p. 7. 


6. 


Ibid. p. 8. 


7. 


Ibid. 


8. 


Ibid. pp. 100-1. 


9. 


Ibid. p. 134. 


10. 


Ibid. pp. 151-2. 


11. 


Ibid p. 153. 


12. 


Ibid. p. 156. 


13. 


Ibid. p. 157. 


14. 


Ibid. 


15. 


Ibid. p. 178. 


16. 


Ibid. pp. 174-5. 


17. 


Ibid. p. 185. 


18. 


E. E. T. S. ex. sen Ed. Rober 


19. 


Ibid. p. 10 1. 279 ff. 


20. 


Ibid. p. 12 1. 347 ff. 


21. 


Ibid. p. 14 1. 417 ff. 


22. 


Ibid. p. 15 1. 462. 


23. 


Ibid. p. 16 1. 474 ff. 


24. 


Ibid. p. 1. 487. 


25. 


Ibid. p. 23 1. 710 ff. 


26. 


Ibid. p. 29 11. 897 ff. 


27. 


Ibid. p. 39 1. 1240 ff. 


28. 


Ibid. p. 40 1. 1267 ff. 


29. 


Ibid. pp. 41-2 1. 1327 ff. 


30. 


Ibid. p. 48 1. 1529 f; 1 1537 f, 


31. 


Ibid. p. 54 1. 1750 ff. 


32. 


Ibid. p. 55 1. 1772 ff. 


33. 


Ibid. p. 66 1. 2121 ff. 


34. 


Ibid. p. 66 1. 2135 ff. 


35. 


Ifbid. p. 66 1. 2145 ff. 


36. 


"Quellen und Forschungen." 


37. 


Ibid. p. 106. 


38. 


Ibid. p. 139. 


39. 


Ibid. p. 141. 


40. 


Ibid. pp. 145-6. 


41. 


Dodskey's O. E. P. vol. II. p. 


42. 


Ibid. p. 62. 


43. 


Ibid. p. 65. 


44. 


Dodsley's O. E. P. vol. II. p. 


45. 


Ibid. p. 76. 


46. 


Ibid. p. 90. 


47. 


Lbid. p. 94. 


48. 


Ibid. p. 14. 


49. 


Ibid. pp. 14-15. 


50. 


Specimens of Pre-Shakespear 




27 ff. 


51. 


Ibid. p. 528 1. 80 f. 



p. 1. 



Ed. Alois Brandl. p. 105. 



57. 



66. 



Manly, J. M. p. 526 1. 



129 



52. 


Ibid. p. 532 1. 


187 f. 


53. 


Ibid. p. 532 1. 


195 f. 


54. 


Ibid. p. 534 1. 


245. 


55. 


Ibid. p. 537 1. 


:]34. 


56. 


Ibid. p. 540 1. 


415. 


57. 


Ibid. p. 549 1. 


087-97. 


58. 


Ibid. p. 559 1. 


990 f. 


59. 


Ibid. p. 560 1. 


997 f. 


60. 


Ibid. p. 562 1. 


1081 ff. 


61. 


Ibid. p. 569 1. 


1262 f. 


62. 


Ibid. p. 577 1. 


1515 f. 


63. 


Ibid. p. 579 1 : 


1565 f. 


64. 


Ibid. p. 581 1. 


1623. 


65. 


Ibid. p. 584 1. 


1684 ff. 


66. 


Ibid. p. 588 11. 


1787 ff. 


67. 


Ibid. p. 589 1. 


1806 f. 


68. 


Ibid. p. 600 1. 


2123. 


69. 


Ibid. p. 613 1. 


2487 ff. 


70, 


Anglia 5, 1882. 


p. 172 1. 4(. 


71. 


Ibid. p. 173 1. 


439 ff. 


72. 


Ibid. p. 175 1. 


496 ff. 


73. 


Ibid. p. 176 1. 


570 ff. 


74. 


Ibid. p. 178 11. 


628-647. 


75. 


Ibid. p. 179 11. 


660-678. 


76. 


Ibid. p. 180. 




77. 


Ibid. p. 180 11. 


7714-31. 


78. 


Ibid. pp. 181-2 


11. 758-771. 


79. 


Ibid. p. 184 11 


. 846-857. 


79. 


Ibid. p. 184 11 


. 846-857. 


80. 


Ibid. p. 189 1. 


979 ff. 


81. 


Ibid. p. 189 1. 


984-1012. 


82. 


Ibid. p. 190 11, 


. 1021-1058 f. 


83. 


Ibid. pp. 192-3 11. 1123 ff. 


84. 


Ibid. pp. 191-2 


11. 1080 ff. 


85. 


Ibid. p. 193 1. 


1163 ff. 


86. 


Ibid. p. 194 1. 


1187. 


87. 


Ibid. p. 194 1. 


1203 f. 


88. 


Ibid. p. 195 1. 


1211 ff. 


89. 


Ibid. p. 195 1. 


1222 ff. 


90. 


Ibid. p. 195 1. 


1231 f. 


91. 


Ibid. p. 197 1. 


1274 ff. 


92. 


Ibid. p. 205 11. 


1516-28. 


93. 


Ibid. p. 206 11 


. 1573 ff. 


94. 


Ibid. p. 208 1. 


1608. 


95. 


Ibid. p. 208 1. 


16-7. 


96. 


Ibid. p. 223. 




97. 


Dodsley, 0. E. 


P. vol. 1, 



ff. 



130 



98. E. E. T. S., ex. ser. 94. p. i^ 11. (i49-.V_'. 

99. Ibid. p. 23 1. (i(i7 f. 

100. Ibid p. 26 1. 781 f. 

101. E. E. T. S., ex. ser. p. 27 1. Mi3. 

102. Ibid. p. 2(3 1. 7ti8. 

103. Ibid. p. 3(1 1. 921. 

104. Ibid. p. 31 1. 95(i ff. 

105. Ibid. p. 35 1. 1070. 
106; Ibid. p. 36 1. 1077. 
1117. Ibid. p. 36 1. 1(»93 ff. 

CHAPTKR V 



1. 


Malone Society Collections. 1. iod. 


2. 


Ibid. 1. 426. 


3. 


Ibid. 1. 93 f. 


4. 


Ibid. 1. 140 ff. 


5. 


Dodsley's 0. E. P. vol. II p. 16(i. 


6. 


Ibid. p. 176. 


7. 


"Materialien zur Kunde des iilteren En^^lischcn Dr:iir.as : 




Bang, p. II. 11. 285-6. 


s. 


Ibid. p. 16. 


9. 


Ibid. 


10. 


Ibid. 


11. 


Ibid. p. 26. 


12. 


Ibid. pp. 16-7. 


13. 


Ibid. p. 18. 


14. 


Ibid. p. 20. 


15. 


Ibid. p. 21. 


16. 


Ibid. p. 34. 


17. 


"Quellen und I'orscbungen", n, :',7S. 


18. 


Ibid. p. 390. 


19. 


Ibid. p. 413. 


20. 


Malone Society. I. 1911. p. 2:13. 


21. 


Ibid. p. 23. 1 iu; ff. 


22. 


Ibid. p. 235. 


23. 


Ibid. p. 238, 1. 259 ff. 


24. 


Ibid. pp. 238-9 1. 271 ff. 


25. 


Ibid. p. 239. 


26. 


"The Life and Repentance of Mary Magdalene." F.d. F. 




penter. p. 15. 


27. 


Ibid. p. 21. 


28. 


Ibid. p. 31, 1. 638 f. 


29. 


Ibid. pp. 31-2. 


30. 


Ibid. p. 32. 


31. 


Ibid. p. 6G. 11. 1529-.30. 


32. 


Ibid. p. 66 11. 1539 ff. 


33. 


Dodsley's 0. E. P. vol. Ill p. 261. 


34. 


Ibid. p. 266. 



\v 



J, Car- 



131 



.'55. Ibid. p. 26.J. 
■Mi. Ibid. p. 312. 

37. Ibid. p. 314. 

38. Ibid. p. 32-j. 
.30. Ibid. p. 326. 

40. Ibid. p. .324. 

41. Ibid. p. .3.3-5. 

42. Shakespeare Jahrbuch, 30. p. 2!t, 1. 551 ff. 

43. Ibid. p. 41, 1. 1011 ff. 

44. Ibid. p. 57. 

45. Ibid. p. 22. 

46. O. E. P. vol. Ill, p. 7. 

47. Ibid. p. 8. 

4«. Ibid. pp. 10-11. 
4!l. Ibid. p. 14. 

50. Ibid. p. 16. 

51. Ibid. p. 17. 
.52. Ibid. p. 28. 
.53. Ibid. p. .30. 

54. Shakespeare Jahrbuch 43. pp. ]4-">. 

.55. Shakespeare Jahrbuch 43. p. IS 11. 2!i3-4. 

5(i. Ibid. p. 23 1. 4.58 ff. 

57. Ibid. p. 24 1. .5.54 ff. 

.58. Ibid. p. 35 1. 1094 ff. 

59. Ibid. p. 51. 1. 1824 f. 

60. Shakespeare Jahrbuch XL. p. IIS II. 113-]!'. 

61. Ibid. p. 149. 1. 147 ff. 

62. Ibid. p. 151 1. 209-17. 

63. Ibid. p. 162. 

64. Ibid. p. 163 1. 689. 

65. Ibid. p. 163 1. 704 ff. 

66. Ibid. p. 166. 1. 809. 

67. Ibid. p. 169. 1. 915 ff. 
{)H. Ibid. p. 178 1. 1247 ff. 

70. O. E. P. vol. VI. pp. .36-7. 

71. Ibid. p. .50. 

72. Ibid. p. .50. 

73. Ibid. p. 61. 

74. Ibid. pp. 70-74. 

75. Ibid. p. 73. 

76. O. E. P. vol. VI. p. 97. 

77. Ibid. p. 249-50. 

78. Ibid. p. 2.55. 

79. Ibid. p. 260. 

80. Ibid. p. 268. 

81. Ibid. p. 269. 

82. Ibid. p. 271. 

83. Ibid. p. 276. 



^ 
t* 



132 



s\. 


Ibid. p. 277. 




80. 


Ibid. p. 278. 




86. 


Ibid. p. 283. 




87. 


Ibid. p. 287. 




88. 


Ibid. p. 293. 




89. 


Ibid. p. 294. 




90. 


Ibid. p. 305. 




91. 


Ibid. pp. 325-6. 




92. 


Ibid. p. 364. 




98. 


Ibid. p. 412. 




94. 


Ibid. p. 413. 




95. 


Ibid. p. 501. 




96. 


Ibid. p. 456. 




97. 


Ibid. pp. 456-7. 




98. 


Ibid. p. 470. 




99. 

100. 
101. 


0. E. P. vol. VIII p. 385. 
Ibid. p. 341. 
Ibid. p. 343. 




102. 


Ibid. p. 373. 






"ane pleasant satyre 


OF TH 


1. 


E. E. T. S. 37. Part 4. p. 379 1. 


76 ff. 


2. 


Ibid. p. 384. 1 237 ff. 




3. 


Ibid. p. 385 1. 253. 




4. 


Ibid. p. 385 1 261. 




0. 


Ibid. p. 394 1. 507 flf. 




6. 


Ibid. p. 396. 1. 574 ff. 




7. 


Ibid. p. 401 1. 722 ff. 




8. 


Ibid. p. 402 1. 743 ff. 




f). 


Ibid. p. 410. 1. 904 ff. 




10. 


Ibid. p. 417. 1. 1091 ff. 




11. 


Ibid. p. 417 1. 1110 ff. 




12. 


Ibid. p. 418. 1. 1118 ff. 




18. 


Ibid. p. 419 1. 1144 ff. 




14. 


Ibid. p. 427. 1. 1360 ff. 




l.".. 


Ibid. p. 431 1. 1456 ff. 




16. 


Ibid. p. 433. 1. 1516 ff. 




17. 


Ibid. p. 440. 1. 1722. 




18. 


Ibid. p. 450. 1. 1966 ff. 




19. 


Ibid. p. 451 1. -2006 ff. 




20. 


Ibid. p. 452 1. 2029 ff. 




21. 


Ibid. p. 458 1. 2050. 




22. 


Ibid. p. 454 1. 2065. 




23. 


Ibid. p. 469 1. 2445. 




24. 


Ibid. p. 469 1. 2451 ff. 




25. 


Ibid. p. 471 1. 2479 ff. 




26. 


Ibid. p. 471 1. 2497 ff. 





133 

27. Ibid. p. 475 1. 2567 ff. 



28. 


Ibid. 


p. 475 1. 2583 ff. 


29. 


Ibid. 


p. 477 1. 2658. 


30. 


Ibid. 


p. 480 1. 2725 ff. 


31. 


Ibid. 


p. 480 1. 2745 f. 


32. 


Ibid. 


p. 480 1. 2751 f. 


33. 


Ibid. 


p. 484 1. 2838 f. 


34. 


Ibid. 


p. 485 1. 2859 ff. 


35. 


Ibid. 


p. 495 1. 3127 ff. 


30. 


Ibid. 


p. 496 1. 3149. 


37. 


Ibid. 


p. 503 1. 3347 ff. 


38. 


Ibid. 


pp. 505-6. 


39. 


Ibid. 


p. 514. 


40. 


Ibid. 


p. 518 1. 3760. 


41. 


Ibid. 


pp. 519-20. 


42. 


Ibid. 


p. 534 11. 4245 ff. 



CHAPTER VI. 

1. Malone Society Collections, I. 1911. p. 20. 

2. Ibid. p. 24. 

3. Malone Society Reprints, 1907. 1. 385 ff. 

4. Ibid. 1. 413. 

5. Ibid. 1. 454. 

6. Malone Society Collections I, p. 245 . 1911. 

7. Ibid. p. 317. 

8. Ibid. p. 319. 

9. Ibid. p. 28. 

lit. Shakespeare Jahrbuch, XXXIII, p. 13. 

11. Ibid. p. 16 1. 109 ff. 

12. Ibid. p. 16 1. 122 ff. 

13. Ibid. p. 17 1. 137 ff. 

14. Ibid. p. 22 1. 118 ff. 

15. Ibid. p. 24 1. 26 ff. 

16. Ibid. p. 24 1. 31. 

17. Ibid. p. 24 1. 36. 

18. Ibid. pp. 24, 25. 

19. Ibid. p. 29 1. 9 ff. 

20. Dodsley's, O. E. P., vol. IV, p. 232. 

21. Ibid. p. 244. 

22. Dodsley's. O. E. P., vol. I. 

23. Ibid. pp. 343-5. 

24. Ibid. p. 352. 

25. Ibid. p. 378. 

26. Ibid. pp. 879-80. 

27. O. E. P., vol. II. p. 112. 

28. Ibid. p. 154. 

29. O. E. P., vol. II. p. 144. 



134 

30. Malone Society Reprints, Ifllo. p. 2, 1. (i8 ff. 

31. "Quellen und Forschungen." Alois Brandl. pp. ()03-4. 
3J. O. E. P., vol. I. pp. 60-61. 

33. O. E. P., vol. II. pp. 272-3. 

34. Ibid. pp. 280-1. 

35. Ibid. p. 293. 







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